On the Winds of Dreams
by RobD
Summary: *UPDATE* Chapter 13 is now up loaded. Rated 'R' for violence and swearing. The Digidestined make their final stand against Umbremon. Will Kari be saved? Will they all make it out alive? Read to find out! Takari,Mimoe,Taiora,Sorato,Patatail & Daiyako.
1. Dreams

Disclaimer: I do not own Digimon-they are all property of Fox/Saban/ whoever.

This story ties in directly with One Red Rose-this occurs almost immediately after part three.

-Rob

__

Help me…

Kari looked around, the voice coming from everywhere at once.

__

Please…somebody please help me...

She tried in vain to peer through the thick, swirling fog all around her, but it was no use.

"Who's there? Where are you?" Kari's voice quivered, fear slowly creeping into it. There was a pause.

__

Help me…

Kari sat up in bed, her breath catching in throat, a cold sweat soaking through her pajamas. She stared around at her room, dark, and quiet except for her ragged gasps, and waited for her heart to slow down to it's normal pace. She scrubbed a hand through her hair, trying to forget that voice, trying to forget the fear that she felt coming from it. 

Kari shook her head and lay down slowly, scratching Gatomon behind the ears. The cat purred happily and stretched, still dozing, across Kari's lap. The girl wished that she could she could sleep so easily. The dream…it wasn't normal. Kari was beginning to wonder if it was even a dream at all.

***

Yolei sat in her room, crying. Poromon had tried to console her for the last two hours, but she had ignored him completely, before finally sending him out. She didn't want to talk to anybody…didn't deserve to have any friends. 

Yolei still couldn't believe what she had done….Kissed her best friend's boyfriend! What had come over her? What possessed her to do something so…futile? What gave her the right? Yolei wept bitterly. She couldn't understand what made her cry when he insulted her…why, when he called her ugly, she had been so hurt. And then...why the kiss? She had just felt this overwhelming…need, this burning desire to show him how she felt. He probably hated her guts. He and Kari both. 

There was a tentative knock at her door. Yolei looked up, startled, as the door opened and Kari walked in.

"K-Kari! Wha-what're you doing here?" Yolei stammered, wiping her eyes and doing her utmost best to show Kari that she had most definitely _not _been crying.

The young brunette in front of her smiled. "I came to talk to you. Listen Yolei, Davis told me what happened…" Yolei suddenly burst into sobs, throwing herself at Kari's feet. 

"A-and now you hate me, right?" She wept harder. "I-I'm sorry Kari, I d-didn't mean...I mean, I thought…" Yolei couldn't even speak through her tears.

"Yolei, I don't hate you." 

The girl looked up.

"Y-you don't?"

Kari smile warmly. "Of course not silly." She said. "You're my best friend."

Yolei wiped her dyes and stood.

"B-but…I kissed your boyfriend…aren't you mad at me?" Kari sighed and sat Yolei down on the bed, and took a spot next to her.

"Davis and I had a good, long talk yesterday…and we both decided that we just weren't meant to be.We both realized that there was someone else."

Yolei stared at the floor glumly. "Like who?" She looked up just in time to see the incredulous look Kari gave her.

***

T.K.'s head was swimming, and whenever he ventured to open his eys, his vision was blurred and distorted. There were people with him-he knew that, but for the life of hi, he couldn't figure out who. He sat up weakly.

"K-Kari? Kari?" Someone laid him down again.

"Sorry T.K., it's just me and Tai." T.K. rubbed his eyes, and Sora slowly came into focus. 

"S-Sora? Hi….What're you…?" He felt himself dropping off to sleep again, his vision slowly darkening. 

"Wh-where's…Kari…."

Sora wiped T.K.'s forehead with a damp cloth, and pulled his blanket back up to his chin. Turning, she saw Tai walk out of the kitchen, carrying a tray laden with eggs, toast, and two steaming cups of tea. Sora kissed him on the cheek, grinning.

"Thanks," she said, "You're a life saver." Tai shrugged and laughed a little.

"I decided you need a break."

Sora gave him another quick peck on the cheek, then sat down with her food, sipping the tea gingerly. 

"So, what'd the doctor have to say?" she asked, eyeing the jam-covered toast. Tai swallowed a large mouthful of eggs, then wiped his mouth.

"Well," he said, moving in on the other half of his eggs, "I just got off the phone with him, and he said that T.K. should be on his feet in a couple of days. Maybe a week."

Sora munched on her toast.

"That's good. So, did Kari talk to Davis?"

The brown-haired boy started attacking his own toast before answering.

"Yeah. She said he took it real well. As a matter of fact…" Tai took another sip of his tea. "..rumor has it that our boy Davis had a secret admirer."

"Yolei?" 

Tai raised an eyebrow. "Yeah." He said. "How'd you guess?"

Sora smiled sweetly. "I'm the bearer of the Crest of Love, Tai, I know it when I see it." Tai laughed.

"I suppose so." He finished off his tea and stood. "I'm gonna go check on T.K. Enjoy your eggs."

Sora was all too happy to oblige.

***

T.K. was floating in a field of gray mists, pressing all around him, swirling and roiling, almost blinding him. Wondering where he was, he tried to see something, anything, throught the thick fog.

__

Help me…

T.K. stiffened. Who…?

__

Help me…

He turned, searching for the voice's origin. It seemed to come from everywhere at once, echoing all around him. T.K. strained his hearing as hard as he could.

__

Somebody…please, help me…

There. Off to the right. T.K. started walking forward, following the voice, all the while a growing sense of apprehension gnawing in the pit of his stomach. 

__

I'm scared…

He cupped his hands around his mouth, and shouted as loud as he could. "Where are you? Help me find you!"

__

…Help me…

As T.K. walked, the mists swirled faster around him, building up, taking form…Soon, the boy found himself walking through what appeared to be a forest- tall, dark trees towering above him, a thing fog drifting in the air, cold against his skin. Quiet as the grave.

T.K. shivered. "Where am I?" he murmured, glancing through the tress. "What is this place?"

__

Help me…Help me…Help me…

"Sora! Help me over here!" T.K. opened his eyes. Tai was shaking him gently, worried. Sora's face popped into view next to his. 

"T.K.?" She wiped his hair out of his eyes. "T.K., you alright?" 

The boy sat up as best he could, wiping the sweat off his forehead. 

"I-I'm fine. Just a dream, that's all." His face lit up. "Hey…do I smell eggs?"

***

It was later that night, when the moon hung high and large above the horizon and the stars were twinkling merrily from behind the clouds that Kari unrolled her sleeping bag at the foot of T.K.'s bed. 

"You sure you don't wanna sleep somewhere else? You could take the couch at least, or the bed, and I could take the floor…" T.K. tried to keep his voice casual. He failed.

Kari smiled sweetly and gave him a playful pinch on the cheek.

"Aw, T.K.," she cooed, "That's just so sweet of you!" The boy rubbed his cheek where she had pinched him. "But I'm fine, T.K. You just relax, okay? I'm here to take care of you, not you me." T.K. fell into a disgruntled silence as she laid out the rest of her sleeping bag.

T.K.'s mother had gone out that night, and had insisted that he have a babysitter. Kari had volunteered immediately, before even Matt could open his mouth. Kari giggled. The look on his face-priceless!

Gatomon's head popped out of Kari's knapsack, the little feline's eyes drooping.

"Kari…?" she mumbled, half asleep. 'Wha…where are we?" the cat yawned and pulled herself out of the pack.

"At T.K.'s."

"Already? Jeez, what'd you do, run?" 

Kari felt a blush creep into her features. She actually _had_ run a good deal of the way here, anxious to meet with T.K., alone…sort of. Gatomon had suddenly insisted (after a brief talk with both Matt and Tai) on being brought along. Kari had a strong feeling that her brother had had a word with Patamon as well.

Patamon was, in fact, sitting on top of T.K.'s head at the moment, flapping his bat-wing shaped ears for balance. Spying Gatomon, the little digimon glided to the floor to meet her.

T.K. sat up in bed. He was much stronger-he could sit up easily, and his breath didn't come so hard- and he turned so that he and Kari were facing each other. 

"So…Sure has been a while. Since you slept over, that is. Uh…when you didn't have to, anyway…um…"

Kari nodded. "Sure has."

The four sat in silence for a very long fifteen minutes, before T.K. suddenly turned to Patamon.

"Hey Patamon…I think mom might've left some cake in the fridge, if you and Gatomon are interested..."

Both digimon stared at him for a second, then they both scampered off towards the kitchen. Kari, seizing the opportunity, shut the door and locked it firmly. Both children sighed in relief, T.K. smiling weakly.

"I thought it might be easier to talk without the 'chaperones;' don't you agree, Kari?" 

She grinned up at him.

"Yeah…so, what do you want to talk about?"

"Don't know."

"Oh."

Kari sat for a moment before speaking. 

"T.K.?" 

"Yes?"

"I've…I've been wondering…have you been having…dreams…lately?"

T.K. straightened visibly, and looked at Kari with wide eyes.

"What sort of…dreams?" He asked, knowing the answer before Kari even opened her mouth.

"Dreams that are, I don't know, not like dreams at all, like…" Kari struggled to pick the best word. "…Like seeing something that's actually happening-as if it's real. Like…actually _being_ there." She gave an exasperated sigh. "You know what I mean?"

T.K. knew. "You mean," he said, his face steadily becoming more and more grim, "like a vision?" 

Kari nodded. "Something like that, yes." 

There was a long stretch of silence. T.K. finally looked up from his thinking. 

"Yes Kari. I've been having dreams."

Kari nodded again. Convincing herself, perhaps? "What do you think we should do?" 

T.K. spoke slowly, thinking through his plan carefully. "I think," he said, " that we should find out if the others are having these type of dreams. It may be important to know. Then, we check out the digital world."

"Why there?"

T.K. winked at her, grinning. " 'Cause. All the weird stuff that goes on around here has something to do with it, that's why. Besides…" his grin faded, became serious. "I could _feel_ it, Kari. I _know_." He shivered. "You don't notice it at first…but after awhile, you can feel the difference in the air…the ground…there's just something, I don't know, _different_." 

Kari grasped his hand and squeezed, trying to offer some form of comfort. Suddenly, there was a noise, just out side the door. And then…

_Bump._ "Ow…."

The two children stared at the door, then began to giggle.

***

So how'd you like it? Curious yet? This is probably gonna take me a long time to write-I'm still trying to figure out some elements in the story. Anyway, please review this(And my other stories too, please.) Merry Christmas!

-Rob


	2. Kidnapped

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters portrayed here, except for The Shadows, and for our story's villain. 

Rob: Sorry this took such a long time, but writer's block can be a horrible, horrible thing…*shudder*

Anyway, here's "On the Winds of Dreams: Part Two." Read, enjoy…and don't forget to leave a review. Thanks.

-Rob

Josh: Gee Rob, that was so…souless. Can't you do any better than _that_ for an introduction? I'm disappointed with you, Rob.

Rob: Shut. Up. 

***

"Anything?" T.K. kept his gaze on the gray sky above, ignoring the wind that snapped his jacket back and forth. Kari stood next to him, her eyes also scanning the clouds.

"Nothing. No one else has them." T.K. sighed. "Them" being the dreams-dreams of some other place, of someone…dreams that were all too real. He sighed again, and ran a hand through his messy blond hair, moving it out of his eyes as the wind whipped it about.

Kari switched her attention to T.K., tugging on his arm.

"C'mon T.K.. You shouldn't even be out of bed. Let's go back inside."

The boy stood a moment longer, before nodding agreement. He smiled at Kari, and took her small hand in his. She gave it a gentle squeeze, then led him back inside the apartment building. 

***

The boy smiled. Things were going well; the bait was set, and they wouldn't be much longer in coming…soon, the child of light would be his. 

He idly fingered the tag hanging around his neck, the golden metal cool against his skin. The boy's smile grew into a malicious sneer. When he had her…The Power would be his. And, oh, how the world would weep…

The boy gestured, and The Shadows came. Dark, twisted beings-their entire lower bodies were almost…animal…in nature, with reversed knees, every hand and foot tipped with long, razor sharp talons; mouths turned up into wide, vicious smiles full of sharp teeth, all beneath a long, pointed nose. They melded with the darkness, blurring and melting in and out of view as easily as breathing, as fast as quicksilver. Only their eyes were clearly visible-two thin, hateful red slits, burning and staring from the darkness. They were fast. The were deadly. They were nightmares made flesh. They were his.

The boy surveyed his creations, his Shadows. They squirmed, anxious for the task their master surely had in store for them. The boy smiled. Another good thing-The Shadows reveled in the misery, the fear, of others; they weren't just good at killing- they enjoyed it. 

He addressed the nearest one, unable to keep the pride out his voice.

"You there…stay and watch them, follow them, if necessary. Stay near them until I command otherwise." He laughed, a horrible, thin, raspy laugh that held no trace of amusement. 

"Let them enjoy their final day."

***

Kari leaned against T.K., enjoying the rise and fall of his breathing, the _steady buh-dump buh-dump_ of his heartbeat. They were curled up together on T.K.'s living room couch. Outside, the sky was growing steadily darker, a raindrop splattering against the window every now and then. 

The room itself was very cozy, very warm. The two children had a comfortable spot for snuggling, a couple of snacks…and a written agreement with Ms. Takaishi to leave them alone for an hour. 

Kari gave a contented sigh as she dozed, smiling happily as T.K. ran his hand through her hair. The room was otherwise completely silent, except for the slow, ticking monotone of the clock on the wall. Kari nestled herself closer to T.K. with a small sigh of pleasure.

"We ought to do this more often…" she yawned. "…we really should."

T.K. chuckled.

"I don't know…this cost me a week's worth of dishes. Plus, I've gotta clean my room once a week now. No to mention the-"

Kari cut him off with a kiss, then whispered softly into his ear.

"As long as it was worth it…"

***

The Shadow's twisted and writhed in the night, awaiting word from their Master. Soon, he had said…soon. Hissing and moaning, The Shadows waited.

***

It was late that night, after Kari had left, after even the local bars were closed and the darkness of the night reached its darkest, that T.K.'s eyes snapped open. He sat up quickly, his breath caught in his throat, beads of sweat dripping off his face. 

He had no idea what woke him up. There was only a lingering sense of doom, only…a feeling…T.K. tossed back his sheets and dressed quickly, rousing Patamon as quietly as he could. The little digimon blinked the sleep out of his eyes, yawning.

"T.K.? What's going on?"

T.K. ignored the question, and slipped out of the apartment, then down the stairs. Running outside and down the street, one thought kept repeating itself to him: something was wrong. Very, very wrong...

***

"Go."

The command came suddenly, silently, yet The Shadows heard. They shrieked with delight, clawing, racing to lead the hunt; screaming through the dead night air, flowing from one pool of darkness to another. The Shadows grinned, fangs bared in their large, toothy smiles. Their prey was so, so close…so vulnerable…so helpless…

***

Kari's clock read two fifty-eight, the numbers glowing brightly in the dark room. She herself was asleep-for the first time in weeks, the dreams hadn't come to her, and she slept easy. Gatomon stretched out at her feet, purring, and in the bunk above Kari, Tai snored quietly. The room was otherwise silent, peaceful…

All three woke up when the window exploded.

***

T.K. ran as fast as he could, lungs burning, to Kari's apartment. Something just wasn't right, and worry gnawed at him. He couldn't suppress the feeling that Kari needed him, that he _had_ to get there.

Patamon was flapping hard, trying to catch up, calling out to the boy ahead of him as loudly as he could, very rapidly running out of breath.

"T.K.! I…need to…Let…me…Digivolve!"

T.K. slowed to a stop, then turned to his partner, cheeks blazing for not thinking of it sooner. 

"Right. Are you ready?"

Patamon nodded.

"Alright then. Digi-Armor…Energize!"

***

The Shadows poured in through the shattered glass, howling and screeching in rapture. They swirled around the room, knocking over furniture, raking their claws along the walls. The Shadows were invisible in the gloom, red eyes leering out of the black. 

Faster than she could blink, Kari was mobbed by the creatures, their long, needle-like teeth gnashing scant inches away from her face.

"Just what the hell do you think you're doing to my sister?!" Tai stood behind the things, fists raised and anger painted across his face.

The Shadows laughed- a low, raspy hiss- and the one closest to Tai swung one large, clawed hand at the boy. Tai went crashing into the far wall, blood running down his face in a crimson wave. 

"Tai! No!" Kari tried to run to her brother, but The Shadows held her tight, talons pressed painfully against her flesh. She struggled, but in vain. She couldn't get free…couldn't help her brother…Kari's eyes filled with tears, and began to sob. The Shadows licked their lips, laughing, grinning their damned, horrible grin…

"Lightning Claw!"

Gatomon swiped at The Shadow holding Kari, her claws tracing three bright lines across the creatures eyes. The Shadow clutched its face in pain, releasing Kari as it did so. She only made it two step before another caught her by the arm, yanking her down to the floor. Gatomon leapt at it, only to be grabbed out of the air by the first Shadow. Holding the cat in one hand, it squeezed harder and harder, until Gatomon couldn't breath. Laughing, it threw her against the wall. Gatomon slid to the floor, landing in a heap. She did not rise again. 

The Shadows circled Kari, laughing their raspy snake laugh, snapping their jaws at her. On some unseen signal, they all rushed the girl, dozens of talons grasping at her; arms, legs, wrists, neck, all were caught in their grip. Slowly, then with increasing speed, they dragged a screaming, wailing Kari out the window. The Shadows grinned. 

Kari's clock struck three.


	3. Revealed

The police called it a kidnapping, most likely by a local gang, a terrorist group, or the old favorite, just some wacko. There were no demands, no ransom list; not yet, the police had said, but there will be-there always are. T.K. knew better- gangs don't kdnap people, then disappear out of a thirteen story building without a trace. Not in under five minutes.

The room was trashed. Books, papers, and broken bits of furnitures were scattered all over the floor. The walls were covered with long, deep cuts, like from a knife...or claws. 

The boy walked over to where Gatomon lay on the floor, unconcious. Checking to see no one was looking, he bent down and scooped the cat into his arms, then made off silently to a window. Pegasusmon waited outside, flapping his wings anxiously. T.K. opened the window.

"Gato! What-"

T.K. clamped a hand over the digimon's mouth, then held a finger against his lips.

"We'll find out later." he said, keeping his voice as low as he could. "But right now, we need to get out of here, and get Gatomon well again. After that, then we'll find out what's going on." _And find Kari,_ he added silently.

The winged horse nodded, and T.K. climbed onto his back. Hidden in the darkness, the two glided silently into the night.

***

Kari opened her eyes, wincing from the bright light that assaulted her. Her head pounded, sharp jolts of pain lancing out from the back of her skull. She tried to sit up, but couldn't- she was strapped down, wrists, ankles, waist- she could barely move. Struggling against her bonds, Kari looked around the best she could. She was tied down to a low, metal table, brightly illuminated by a single spotlight. Beyond the ring of light was pure black, absolutely nothing visible. She pulled against her straps again, but stopped with a cry of pain as the tough material bit into her arm. No good. She took another look around, but nothing was different...except...now she could just barely make out something in the darkness. She squinted. Nothing...until a pair of thin, red eyes appeared. Then another. Then five. Then ten, twenty...soon, dozens of the eyes were leering at her, unblinking.

Kari's breath quickened, then caught in her throat. She began to strain hard against the straps, panic overwhelming the pain, blood now flowing and smearing down her arm. 

"Get away!" she screamed. "Get away from me!" The eyes retreated; just a little. Kari couldn't keep herself from shaking. 

"Somebody please help me!"

"Please miss Kamiya...no need to shout. It won't do you any good." 

Kari froze.

"W-who's there?" She twisted her neck, trying to get a better view of whoever was speaking. "What do you want? Let me go!"

"I already told you, miss Kamiya...no need to shout."

Kari snapped her head back. In front of her now stood a figure, face hidden by shadows. As far as she could tell, he wasn't much taller than herself, but something about him...it made her feel small, insignificant...and cold. There was a darkness about him that trancended what she could see...Kari shuddered. 

"Who are you?" She repeated, voice catching in her throat. "W-what do you want?"

"Want?" He took a step further into the light. His voice was low and raspy, horrible to listen to; like a snake. It made Kari's skin crawl just listening to it. "Why, power, of course. What else?" He took another step.

Kari swallowed the rising lump in her throat. 

"W-what does that h-have to do w-with me?"

The figure stopped walking, folding his hands behind his back.

"It has everything to do with you, miss Kamiya. Why else do you think I've gone to all this trouble to bring you here? You hold vast power girl...you and that boy. I want it. And with you here, and him sure to follow...I'm going to get it." He took one final step further into the light, revealing his face. Kari screamed. 

"Josh? You..."

The boy's smile faded, replaced by a sneer of disgust. Striding over to Kari's table, he slapped her hard across the face, his hand leaving a large, stinging red mark. 

"Never call me by that miserable creature's name again. Ever." He regained a bit of his composure, then leaned in close to Kari's face. 

"Yes, I have his body, but make no mistake; I am as far removed from your wretched kind as you are from an ant. I am no human." As if to emphasize his point, Josh's eyes blared a bright red.

Kari bit her lip, trying to keep the tears from spilling down her cheeks as half of her face throbbed and burned. 

"I-I d-don't underst-stand..." she said, "w-w-what t-trouble? W-what do you mean?"

The boy sighed, like a teacher approaching an idiot. "I mean..." he explained, "...the efforts I went to to make sure that the boy would follow you, as soon as possible, and without thinking."

Kari shook her head. "I- I don't..."

"Miss Kamiya, why do you think that mr. Takaishi was on the roof in the first place?"

She hung her head (as best she could anyway), feeling a bit ashamed. 

"I- I don't know."

Josh shook his head. "You must have some guess. Please, miss Kamiya; enlighten me. Why do you think the boy was on the roof?"

"I-I suppose he...that he...h-he heard about me a-and Davis..." She hung her head miserably. "I guess I should've told him..."

"True." Josh interupted. "But no. You nearly ruined everything; did you know that? All my work...you could've destroyed it all, miss Kamiya. So...I gave the boy a little 'push'...Thanks to me, he saw it first hand."

Kari's head snapped up. "You-you're the one who...?" She pulled against her restraints. He had made T.K. unhappy. He had nearly destroyed him...Kari wanted to kill him.

"You...you..."

Josh rolled his eyes.

"Yes, yes, me, me. Be thankful I didn't simply kill him, girl. Be thankful he happened to share your power. And be thankful that I paired you with someone who was at least somewhat tolerable."

Kari sputtered and glowered, face heating. Josh stood, waiting.

"Well?"

Kari burst.

"You're a monster!" she said, spitting.

The boy wiped the spittle off his cheek nonchalantly, then leaned in closer to her.

"I'm afraid you'll think much worse of me than that before too long, miss Kamiya. much worse." He straightened, then laid a hand on her cheek. Kari wanted to bite it off. 

"Believe me, miss Kamiya, I wish I didn't have to kill you. Far from it. I just want you to know...I hold you in the highest regard." Removing his hand, he snapped his fingers, and two of The Shadows moved to his side. 

"Remove her bonds, and give her something to eat. Then throw her in the dungeon."

Kari sobbed quietly as the creatures loosened the straps holding her down; knowing that there was nothing she could do about it made things even worse. _Please_, she thought, _Please T.K. ...don't...Don't do anything stupid..._

***

**__**

"What do you mean, _just vanished_?!?"

Patamon hung his head.

"I'm sorry Matt...he was here one second and I turned around, and then...he was gone."

Yamoto "Matt" Ishida forced himself to take a deep, calm breath. Then he took another one. It wasn't patamon's fault...It wasn't Patamon's fault...Matt took another breath before he spoke, and ran a hand through his golden hair.

"Okay...He just left, right?"

"Less'n ten minutes ago."

Matt sighed. At least T.K. couldn't have gotten too far.

"I'll round up the others. In the meantime, I want you to...to...I don't know. Just do what you can."

Patamonlooked over at Gatomon. The little cat's eyes were closed and her breathing was harsh and shallow, but she _was_ breathing, and that, at least, was something.

"I'll watch Gatomon." 

Matt nodded, a glimmer of understanding passing between him and the small digimon. 

"Alright then. Take it easy, Patamon. And...good luck." With that, Matt slipped on his jacket and left.


	4. Wishes

Patamon watched silently as Matt headed out the door, but turned his attention back to Gatomon as soon as the lock clicked into place. The Takaishi apartment was quiet, Matt's footsteps retreating quickly out of Patamon's considerable hearing range, and the sky outside was a pre-dawn gray. The little orange digimon flapped his wings once or twice, fanning Gatomon lightly as she slept in an effort to keep her as comfortable as he could; he didn't really think it did any good, but he couldn't think of anything better. Meanwhile, Gatomon turned fitfully in her sleep, moaning softly every now and then.

"It...it....it hurts..."

Patamon shot up from his perch on the chair as soon as he heard her speak.

"Gats? Are you-" 

"Hurts...hurtshurtshurts...make...stop...please...." Patamon flew in closer, and to his surprise, found Gatomon still asleep. He shook her gently, trying to wake her from whatever nightmareshe was having.

"Gatomon? C'mon Gats, wake up."

But she wouldn't. She began to thrash wildly, tears running down her cheeks and into her whiskers.

"Make it stop! Make it stop! Nooo...No! No more, Please!!" Gatomon screamed in her sleep, Patamon frantically trying to wake her. 

"Gatomon! Wake up!" He shook her again, harder this time, and his voice began to quiver slightly. He didn't know what was going on, but it frightened him. 

Gatomon's eyes snapped open, large and round with fright, and she swung one paw at her companion. 

"Get away! Get away from me!!!"

The blow sent Patamon flying across the room, and he slammed hard against the wall. He lay on the floor, stunned, until he regained his senses. He sat back on his haunches, rubbing his head gingerly, and flapped his wings to get airborne. The force of the blow surprised him, although it shouldn't have-Gatomon was, after all, a champion level digimon, and he was only a rookie. _Yeah,_ he thought sadly, _a very small rookie._

Patamon flew silently to the couch where Gatomon lay, and cautiously peeked over the edge of the arm rest. Gatomon had fallen asleep again. Her breathing was still a little heavy, but she no longer tossed and turned, and she seemed to be at peace. She was, however, still mumbling:

"Thank you...always so good to me..." 

Patamon, quite frankly, didn't know what to make of Gatomon's behavior. At the moment, he was just glad that he had thought to remove her clawed gauntlets; otherwise, Patamon had very little doubt that he would be dead right now.

Patamon began to argue with himself, wondering whether or not he should wake the sleeping feline. One the one hand, she had calmed down considerably, and she _did_ need her rest. On the other hand, though, was the nightmare. That, plus remebering how terrified Gatomon sounded, decided it. He just needed to know...needed to know what was going on with his friend, whether he could help or not, because Patamon desperately wanted to help her. It was nothing he could explain really...he just _needed_ to.

Not quite sure if he was doing the smartest thing, Patamon reached over...

"...Wizardmon..."

Patamon's paw stopped in mid-air. What did she say...?

"Wizardmon...thank you..."

The little digmon froze, not even breathing. Was Gatomon dreaming about Wizardmon? It sounded like it. Suddenly, Patamon got a very uncomfortable feeling that what ever dream conversation she was having was about to head into something very serious and probably very private, and most definitely something he didn't want to hear. 

Flapping his wings steadily, Patamon rose into the air and flew off into the kitchen as fast as he could, landed on the table, and promptly plopped himself down on his hind legs. He sat, staring straight ahead, waiting quietly as the clock ticked away the hour. After a few minutes of silence, Patamon found himself wishing, for some odd reason, that Gatomon had been dreaming about _him_.

***

Gatomon swished her tail nervously as she stood in front of Wizardmon, shifting uneasily. 

"Listen, Wizardmon...there's something...something I want to say."

The digimon in front of her, wearing a tattered blue cloak and broad-brimmed pointy hat while leaning on some sort of ornate staff, leaned in closer. 

"So do I, Gatomon."

The cat took a deep breath, then leaped at her friend, hugging him fiercely. He returned it with full enthusiasm, wrapping his cloak around her so that it enveloped them both.

"I- I wanted to say that you've always been there for me, and that...That I love you, Wizardmon." Gatomon squeezed her eyes shut and hugged him tighter. "Thank you, my friend. For al-always being so good to me..."

Wizardmon stroked her gently, whispering. 

"I think you already know what I have to say, Gatomon."

She pressed the side of her face against his chest.

"I want to hear it."

Wizardmon tilted Gatomon's head back until she was looking straight into his fierce green eyes. 

"Gatomon...I love you....love you....love you...

Gatomon opened her eyes slowly, the last remnants of her dream fading softly into the bright sunlight streaming in through the window, and sighed. Another dream. Another idle fantasy of what could have been. Gatomon rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and yawned, wishing, not for the first time, that Wizardmon _had_ survived that attack, four years ago. She sighed again. What was the human saying? "If wishes were horses..." Gatomon sighed. "...then beggars would ride." When was she going to get over this? Probably never. Wizardmon's death would always be with her; she had watched him die, and things like that stayed long with her memory. Still...it was a nice dream...

She sat up, groaning, and stretched. This was a mistake. Wincing from the sharp pain in her ribs, Gatomon let out a short yelp of pain. From the kitchen, Patamon called out, sounding relieved, yet a bit wary.

"Gatomon? You awake?" The little orange digimon flapped into the room quickly, landing on a chair next to the couch. 

"Are you feeling any better?"

Gatomon nodded, but ruined the illusion by wincing again as she did so. Patamon sat down, eyeing Gatomon with a "nice try" sort of look.

"Rough night, huh?"

And that's when it all came back to Gatomon. The Shadows. The screams, the pain, the horror, Kari being dragged away...She pushed herself to her feet.

"Kari! I have to find Kari! They took her!" She took a few wobbly steps before she stumbled, and would have fallen had Patamon not caught her.

"First of all, you're not going anywhere for a while." he said, with an air of finality that was unfamiliar to his voice. "Second, _who_ took her? What happened last night?"

Gatomon narrowed her eyes and glared at Patamon, but, seeing the look on his face, didn't push the issue and laid back down. 

"I don't know what they were. There were a lot of them, and they were blacker than my shadow. That's about all I could tell, besides that they had claws. And they smiled."

"Smiled?"

Gatomon nodded, face grim. "They were horrible. All the time, while they destroyed everything, they smiled. It was like...like..." Gatomon sniffed.   
"...It was like they enjoyed making us suffer, as much as they could." A small tear pooled at the corner of each of Gatomon's blue eyes. "They liked it best when Kari cried, and when she screamed." Gatomon collapsed into a shudder of sobbing. 

"I-I let her down! She's gone be-because of m-m-me!" Gatomon put her face into her paws, and did something she rarely did-she cried. Flat out cried, bawling and sniffling miserably. Patamon, to say the least, had no idea what to do. But, as credit to his character, leaned over and laid a paw on Gatomon's shoulder.

"C'mon Gats...It's not your fault...I mean, it was one of you against all of them." He smiled ruefully. "And if I know you, there had to be about a hundred of 'em to beat you, Gats." 

The sounds of Gatomon's crying faded, then disappeared altogether. She lifted her head, and smiled, albeit weakly. 

"Of course...." She straightened. "Of course! Naturally!"

Patamon smiled and laughed. "There's my girl!" With that, he helped Gatomon to her feet, then led her into the kitchen, where she proceeded to virtually empty the refrigerator.

"Feeling better yet?" Patamon asked, amusement playing across his face.

Gatomon looked up from the bowl of food she was eating, still chewing a piece of tuna fish, and nodded.

"Well enough to travel?"

Gatomon swallowed, and stood, then slipped on her gauntlets. 

"Let's go." With that, she padded slowly out the door.

Patamon sighed heavily, muttering so she couldn't hear.

"Gee...you're welcome, Gats. What? Oh no, no need to thank me, I'm happy to be the peanut gallery..." He sighed again, and flew after her, still, for some reason, bothered about Gatomon's dream.

***

"Are you sure?" Davis asked, eyes intense. "Are you sure you're ready? This is what you want?"

Yolei nodded. 

"Yes..." she breathed, heart beating fast. "I'm ready. I've wanted to do this for so long..." 

Davis smiled in his usual, cocky way.

"Alright then....Fight!"

Yolei grabbed her controller and began pushing buttons frantically. 

"Hey, no fair!" she cried, "You were already holding yours!"

Davis laughed. "You said you were ready, didn't you?" He laughed again, and Yolei ground her teeth. 

"Your butt is mine, Motimya!"

"You wish!" 

The two bantered back and forth, name-calling, jeering, and threatening. Finally, Yolei's fighter went down, ad Davis stood victorious.

"Alright! See, what'd I tell ya'? You never stood a chance!"

Yolei pursed her lips for a moment, but then grinned. 

"Davis..." she said, voice dripping with sweetness, "...how would you like a prize, for being just _so_ talented?"

Davis blinked, his face going blank. 

"Really? A prize? What sort of prize?"

Yolei stood, and walked over to him, smiling mischievously all the while.

"I don't know, maybe just a little something...." she leaned in closer to Davis, who was, by this time, looking very similar to a deer that's been caught in the headlights.

"...like..." She leaned forward, whispering softly into Davis' ears, sending shivers up and down his spine. 

"...this..."

Yolei suddenly shoved Davis to the floor, then pounced, tickling him viscously beneath the ribs.

Davis, laughing, tried to push her off of him.

"Hey, no fair! That was dirty pool!" Yolei quite pointedly ignored him, and continued her merciless attack on his ribs. Davis, seeing that negotiation was no longer an option, decided to wage a tactical strike and tickled Yolei back, making a desperate grab for her foot. Soon, the two were rolling around on the floor, tickling, laughing, and calling each other all sorts of names until, finally, they both lay flat on their backs, gasping for air.

"That..." Yolei breathed, " has got to be the _best_ video game I have _ever _played. I never thought I'd get a crack at it."

Davis, still catching his breath, smiled.

"I'm-I'm glad you liked it."

The girl propped herself up on her elbows, and smiled back at the boy, showing of two rows of pearly white teeth.

"Thanks for inviting me over Davis. This was a lot of fun."

"It was, wasn't it?"

They both blushed a little, and started to lean closer to each other, faces getting nearer, and nearer...Both jerked their heads back as a loud gagging noise behind them interrupted. They turned, blushing a lot now, to face demi-Veemon (Who was holding his throat and sticking his tongue out in mock-disgust), and Poromon, who was simply staring, mouth agape.

Davis laughed weakly, scratching his head.

"Hey, um, sorry guys...forgot you were here..."

Demi-Veemon laughed and hopped onto his partner's shoulder, giving it as hearty a pat as he could.

"Hey, don't mind me ol' buddy!" he said, still laughing, "I'm just here for the show!" Davis shoved the little digimon off his shoulder and pretended to ignore him.

Meanwhile, while Yolei was in the middle of explaining to Poromon that she had certainly _not_ been about to kiss the boy, the phone rang. Davis, glad for an escape route, picked it up quickly.

"Motimiya residence, Davis here."

Matt's voice came through from the other end, sounding angry and worried and frustrated all at the same time.

"Davis, you and Yolei need to get over to Izzy's. We've got a problem."

The boy nodded. 

"Sure, will do. But-" 

Matt didn't even give him a chance to finish. 

"Davis? Go now."

***

Kari landed with a heavy _thud_ as the Shadows tossed her into her cell, laughing, and then shut the door. There was a loud _click_ as the lock slid into place, and then all was silent. The girl looked around, but could see nothing at first. Then, slowly, as her eyes began to adjust, Kari began to make out shapes in the darkness, and soon could make her way around. 

It was a typical dungeon cell, one of many others, so many that they disappeared in the gloom of the hallway. It was a small, square room, made up of rotten and crumbling stone, bare except for a small pile of reeking straw in one corner. Behind her was the door, a solid, heavy, metal door with a thin vertical slot for food, and on the wall opposite to it was a small, barred window. Kari stood up and walked carefully to the window, then grasped the bars in both hands and gave them an experimental tug. They stood fast. 

Kari sighed. She knew it wouldn't have worked. And even if she did manage to pry off the bars, through some miracle or another, the girl realized that there was simply no way she'd even fit through the tiny opening. Pressing her face against the bars, Kari looked down as far as she could, and saw what she feared; it was a long way down, with no bottom in sight.

Kari turned her back to the window, leaning against the cold, hard stone, and sank to her knees. That was it then. There was no way to escape. None. She put her face into her hands, the tears already falling. She was scared. She was alone. She was cold, hungry, and tired, but there was nobody, _nobody_ there to help her, and there wouldn't be. Escape? Impossible. Rescue? Doubly so. It would take an army, a miracle! 

"T.K…." she whispered as she closed her eyes, " …help me…" 

***

T.K. blinked, not quite certain of what was going on. Where was his room? Where was Patamon? The boy frowned. Where was he? The digital world, perhaps? T.K. doubted it. It didn't…it didn't _feel_ right. There was just something _different_ about this place…different, but familiar...

He looked around. To the right, a massive forest sprung up in the distance, tall, shadowy trees darkening the gloomy path. To the left, there was nothing. A wasteland, an endless expanse of desert. Ahead, there was the edge of a cliff, and beyond that…beyond that, was the ocean. Dark, swirling, angry waters, rolling and foaming as they crashed against the rocks; extending maybe fifty yards out into the water was a small barrier of rocks, supporting a single lighthouse. Everything was blanketed in a thick, swirling fog, the gray mist hiding things in and out of view. T.K.'s breath caught in his throat, and he stumbled, realizing he was definitely not in the digital world, his fears confirmed. The lighthouse…it shone a beam of pure black into the sky. 

He was in the Dark World.

***

"So…what's the big emergency?" Davis and the others gathered around Matt, sitting in a rough circle on the floor of Izzy's bedroom.

Matt gave the spiky-haired boy a harsh look, but let it slide.

"T.K. and Kari…they're missing." Everyone virtually jumped to their feet, crying out in alarm, and firing questions at the boy.

"When?!"

"How long have they been gone?!"

"Where're Sora and Tai? Shouldn't they know about it?"

"Who did it? Where are they?"

Matt tried to calm everyone down, motioning for them all to be quiet and sit down. After a few minutes, they did.

"First off," Matt said, "Sora already knows. She's at the hospital with Tai, just in case…whoever they are…decide to finish what they started. Kari's been missing since last night, and T.K. …T.K. vanished this morning. I don't know where they are. I don't know who did it. I don't know anything right now." Matt slumped heavily in his chair. "But we're gonna find 'em."

Davis stood, fists clenched. 

"Let's do it!" He shouted, pulling his digivice out of his pocket. "When do we start?"

Matt smiled, just a little, but it vanished quickly. Around him, Yolei, Cody, Joe, and Izzy stood up as well. Matt nodded, then turned to the computer. 

"I'm gonna e-mail Mimi and give her the message, and maybe she can get in touch with Michael and Willis. We're gonna need all the help we can get." After a few moments of typing, Matt pushed himself away from the screen and stood.

"Alright." He said. "Let's go."


	5. Cell Mates

T.K. walked forward, unsure of where he was going. Rather than risk the desert, he had decided to head for the trees, hoping that they'd provide him with at least some cover. 

He still couldn't believe that he was here, in this dark parody of the digital world. One minute, he was talking to Patamon, trying to think of a way to find Kari, and then-suddenly- he was here. He shook his head. It didn't make any sense…

He sighed, and continued walking, hoping to find some way out of her before too long. Behind him, unseen and unheard, something in the bushed moved. Something caught a strange new scent, exciting and fresh, and full of a vitality that had never existed here…Something was hungry.

***

Kari had no idea how long she'd been in her prison. She had fallen asleep crying, and although she got the feeling that a good deal of time had passed, outside the window it was still dark. She stood with her face against the bars, glad, at least, for the fresh air. In the last hour, the pile of hay in the corner's smell had intensified to the point where it was absolutely awful, and Kari couldn't stand to breathe anywhere near it. 

As she looked out the window, Kari couldn't help but wish that T.K. was there with her. More than anything, she was terrified of being alone. She wasn't strong, like all the other digidestined. She had always been weak, even as a child, never- Kari caught herself. It was that kind of thinking that had sent her to that awful beach, with that lighthouse…She shuddered. Never again, she promised herself, never. She had friends to help her, and even though they weren't there, just knowing was enough. They lent her strength when she had none herself…caught her when she fell. Kari smiled, briefly, at the thought of Yolei, berating her for doubting herself, then apologizing for being insensitive. Truth was, Kari couldn't recall a time in her life when someone had been so honest with her, so open…except for T.K.. Just he thought of what they had shared made her shudder, in a very unfamiliar, surprisingly pleasurable way than before. He made her feel like…like…Kari sighed in a dreamy sort of way, finding a momentary escape from the dingy cell she was captive in. T.K. made her feel wonderful. 

Kari snapped back to reality as a guard outside her door shoved open a metal slot, and slid a small tray through. On it was neatly placed a rough wooden bowl, filled with what looked like water, and a small roll. Once it was through, the guard slammed the grate shut, leaving the girl once again alone. 

Kari pounced on the tray, cramming the roll into her mouth and taking large, greedy gulps of the foul tasting water. Kari realized that she must look like a total slob, but she was beyond caring at this point-she could barely remember the last time she ate, and starvation leaves very little room for manners. 

As she wolfed down what little food was given to her, Kari became aware of a soft, metallic clanking sounds. She stopped chewing and held her breath, listening carefully for the source of the noise. After a few moments, she remembered to breathe and let her breath out in a big _whoosh_, then crept quietly around the room. As she neared on corner, the one opposite the one with the hay, near the window, the sound became slightly louder. Kari pressed the side of her head against the wall, and then, knocked tentatively. The clanging came to an abrupt halt. She knocked again, and this time, there was a brief _clink-clank_ of chains, and then an answering knock. 

Kari could barely contain herself. There was someone else, right there in the next cell-she wasn't alone! Searching the wall, Kari found a loose chunk of brick, and giving it a hard tug, pulled it out of the wall. The resulting hole was small, just barely big enough for her to fit her hand through, and went straight through to the other cell. 

"Psst! Hey, you, in the other cell! Hey!" Kari kept her voice low, afraid the guard outside would hear, but couldn't keep the joy and excitement of finding another person in this pit out of her voice.. 

There was a clink of chains, and then a large, round, blue eye appeared at the other end of the hole. At the moment, it was the most beautiful eye in existence.

"Hello," Kari whispered, overcome with joy. "What's your name?" 

The eye blinked once or twice, and a small voice answered her. 

"I'm Josh. Josh Masters. Who're you?"

***

"I said, I don't need any help!"

"But Tai, you just got out of the hospital! At least let me help with the-"

Tai waved Sora away from him, limping towards the front door of the family's apartment. The wreckage from the attack had been mostly cleaned up, only a few scars left in the wall as a reminder. Tai fumbled with the doorknob, then shoved the door open. Sora followed, trying in vain to get him to listen to her.

"All I'm saying is that you can't get around that well!" She said, ignoring his loud grumbling. "I just think it would be a good idea if I helped you out, you know, up and down stairs-"

"I'll take the elevator."

Sora stepped in front of the boy, barring his path, glowering at him with hands on her hips.

"What is your problem Tai?" she asked fiercely.

The boy paused momentarily, face softening for an instant, but shoved by her. 

"I'm…just worried about Kari, that's all. I-I just need some space right now. Just…just leave me alone. I don't need any help."

With that, Tai limped down the hallway, turned the corner, and disappeared from view. Sora stood in the middle of the now deserted hallway, hands still on her hips, frowning a troubled frown. 

***

"And you've been here, all that time?" Kari asked, the tone of her voice bordering on disbelief. 

"Uh-huh. Three years." The little voice answered through the wall, its owner as happy for company as Kari was.

Kari could hardly believe it, and she told him so.

"Weren't you scared?" she asked, and it was a pretty valid question-she had had a fair sized talk with the boy in the other cell, and during their conversation had learned that the Josh upstairs was absolutely nothing like the one she was talking to. For one thing, the boy she was talking to wasn't just polite, but he meant it, too. For another thing, he was eight years old. Apparently, whatever it was that had kidnapped her didn't actually _inhabit_ Josh's body; rather, it copied it, and suited it for his own needs.

"Yeah," Josh said, "For awhile, I was real scared. I even cried…a little. Promise not t'tell?" The eye on the other side blinked, worried that Kari just _might_ tell. She laughed, and assured the boy that it was strictly between them, no she wouldn't tell anybody, she promised, and yes, she _really_ meant it. 

Satisfied, the boy began to ask questions of his own.

"So…um…what _are_ you?"

Kari blinked, a trifle shocked.

"I'm a human. Are you telling me that you've never seen another human being before?"

Through the hole, Kari could see the boy nod his head solemnly.

"I've lived in the Digiworld all my life," he said. "And there's hardly ever been any humans. Jus' me, I guess." At this point Kari's interest peaked. 

"_All_ your life?"

"Uh-huh."

"So, you can't remember your mother, or your father? Who raised you?"

Josh's eye saddened. 

"I grew up with Ryuamon. She took real good care of me, until…'til she went away. And then _he_ came." The boy shuddered. "He was so big! And scary, too! I couldn't even move. And then he started flying at me, all swoopy, and then…" a little sniffle came through the hole. "…Then I woke up in here." 

Kari stuck her hand through the small opening, and brushed the boy's tears away gently.

"It's okay…it's okay, shh…" She was suddenly reminded of the way the others used to describe T.K., before they had met. He was about Josh's age at the time-Matt's dopey little brother, that's what Tai called him at first. The kid. The crybaby. The one everyone had to take care of. But that had changed. T.K. had grown up a lot in a matter of months, from "the kid" to a highly respected member of the group.

"It's okay…" she whispered, "…it's okay if you want to cry. I won't tell." Kari began to stroke the boy's hair in what she hoped was a comforting, motherly way, and was soon rewarded by the sounds of a softly breathing, sleeping child.

Kari smiled, and gently drew her hand back through the hole and into her cell. It was nice, she decided, to make someone else a little bit more comfortable in this place. With that, she leaned against the wall, and with Josh's steady breathing as a lullaby, fell asleep.

***

Davis hung the phone up heavily, sighing a little. No word yet, on either T.K. or Kari. Nothing. The team had spent nearly all day in the digital world, searching, but to no avail. Now that Tai was out of the hospital and doing fine, Davis thought that the search would go quicker. According to Sora, however, Tai was far from "doing fine," and she didn't know what was wrong with him. Davis had an inkling, having been in Tai's shoes before, but he figured that it was a matter between him, Sora, and Matt. He smiled, briefly, at his own thought process. How much had he matured recently? Who could tell. He knew who he owed it to though…

"Hey, Veemon, you still awake?"

The little blue reptile opened one eye.

"Yeah, why?"

"Just checking." 

Veemon grumbled a bit, but fell asleep quickly. Davis smiled again, this time the smile lasting longer. However, his thoughts soon returned to Kari, and T.K. , and just how in the world they were going to find them. The smile dimmed, then faded entirely. No, he was not the same boy he had been at the beginning of the school year. No longer the rash, stupid (yet irresistibly handsome), kid he had been. Now what was he, then? He wasn't stupid. Never had been, just…he just didn't really think before he said anything, that's all. That had changed, he supposed, though not as much as he'd have liked. He still remembered that day with Yolei, the day he made her cry by calling her something so completely stupid…He sighed again. Sometimes, Davis wished that he could just jump back in time and stop himself from making such an ass of himself. Reflecting on the last couple of months, he realized that he'd done it far too often. Especially with T.K.. 

He had seen it from the start, really, that T.K. and Kari were just…made…for each other. Of course, he had refused to believe it. He had refused to see the way her eyes lit up when she saw him again for the first time, the way her whole attitude had become more cheerful. She became happy; really, truly, happy. Davis sighed again, a bit bemused at his own lack of sight. She had given him every signal short of a kick to the groin that she hadn't been interested; what kept him at it?

And then a disturbing thought hit Davis: Why did Kari warm up to him all of a sudden? He hadn't even thought about it. Out of the blue, Kari had grabbed his hand, pulled him into an alley and asked for a date. Davis scratched his head, confused. It was very un-Kari like. Why then…

Davis shuddered. He didn't know why, but something told him that it had to do with her disappearance. It must have. Was it even the real Kari? Yes, of course it was. _Was it really?_ A nasty little voice in the back of his head whispered. _How do _you_ know? For all you know, she could've been missing for weeks, months…For all you know, she really was swallowed by the ground all that time ago…_Davis shook his head. That wasn't possible…was it?

__

You know it is! The voice answered with glee. _What if they're all imposters? You can't trust them…they'll destroy you…they don't trust you, either, can't you see? They aren't your friends at all, are they…..they talk all about you when you're not around…_Davis began to sweat, and deep inside him, the voice laughed, whispering fears and doubts into his mind. 

__

Yes… the voice hissed. _Why do you think T.K. and Kari flirted like they did? To make you jealous…to throw it in your face…to spite you…they aren't your friends…._

Maybe…maybe it was right… 

__

they don't believe you can do anything right…you know they don't…they think you're worthless…the hate you….

How could I know, he thought. _How could I know if..._

The boy slapped himself, hard and sudden across the face. The voice stopped, disappeared. Beaten. 

Davis looked up, and found that he was no longer standing, but hunched down on his knees. It was darker outside than he remembered, and the house was far too quiet for seven o' clock. He looked at the clock-radio he kept by hi bed, and grimaced. Past midnight. 

The spiky-haired boy stood up and grabbed the phone, dialing Yolei's number. Something was wrong here; something he didn't understand. He didn't know was it was…but he had an idea.

***

The phone rang shrilly, effectively shattering the late nigh silence that had settled upon Yolei's bedroom. The girl shot up from he bedcovers and grabbed the receiver, fully intending to verbally ream out whoever was on the other end.

"Just who the he-"

"Yolei! It's me Davis!"

She stopped short, taken off-guard. 

"Davis? What're you doing, calling in the middle of the night?" she growled. "There are people trying to sleep, y'know." Yolei made her voice angrier than she meant; somehow, Davis calling her at odd hours of the morning wasn't as annoying as one would think. 

"Yeah, I know, and I'm sorry, but this is important." 

She tensed. Just a little.

"O-okay…what is it?"

"I need to ask you…"

"Yes?"

"Well…do you think that it was kinda…odd…what Kari did awhile ago? Y'know, when she came on t'me real suddenly?"

Yolei's heart fell the tinniest bit, but she recovered quickly.

"Oh, um…yeah, actually. Now that you mention it, that was pretty weird. I mean, one day, she's doing everything short of kicking you in the…umm…and the next day, she's all over you!"

The was a momentary lapse of silence on the other end of the phone line before Davis spoke up again.

"Yolei…I think it has to do with her missing. No, I _know_ it does. I…I just don't know how. Not yet."

Yolei sat on the edge of her bed, still holding the receiver to her ear. 

"Davis?"

"Yeah?"

"Maybe…maybe you're right. We should talk to the others about this…" She glanced at her clock. "…but tomorrow, okay? It's too late right now."

Another lapse of silence. Then… 

"Alright Yolei. Tomorrow."

***

Far above Kari's cell, Joshua Masters, or at least what appeared to be Joshua Masters, leaned back into his throne, folding his hands thoughtfully beneath his chin. The boy, Davis, was stronger than he thought. He might become a problem…definitely, if left unchecked. The boy snapped his fingers, and the Shadows came to him once more. 

"Watch him. Inform me of any developments." 

With that, the Shadows glided off, grinning at their new orders, disappointed that the boy had to live, but overjoyed to have been commissioned by their master. The boy smiled too, as he always did when observing his creations. Things were going well. The boy was coming, the girl was his, and the digidestined…his thin lips pressed themselves more tightly together. He had plans for them. Big, big plans…

He threw back his head and laughed, the sound echoing throughout the dark hall; floors below him, in the depths of the dungeons, Kari and a young boy of destiny slept fitfully, and in the darkness of the night, the Shadows grinned.


	6. 

Starving, T

Starving, T.K. decided, sucked. It had been a long, long time since he'd eaten, and at this his stomach protested loudly. The fact that the day was heavily overcast, the sky a dull gray color and everything else seemingly "washed out" as well, didn't help the boy's mood.

At the moment, he sat warily at the base of a large tree, leaning against the trunk with his legs stretched out before him as he tried to decide what he should do next. So far as he knew, the only way in or out of this place was a sort of "hole" in space, like a rip in the fabric of reality-a warp. T.K. had hoped, faintly, that f he had wandered around long enough, he might find one. Admittedly not the best plan, but it was a plan none the less. One in which he was, however, rapidly losing faith. 

For what seemed to be the billionth time that day, T.K.'s thoughts turned to Kari. Was she alright? He wondered. Was she frightened? Also for the billionth time that day, the boy's hearth leapt to his throat. What if she was hurt? She could be in pain, she could be…

T.K. kicked a small clump of dirt angrily. She could be all that and more, and here he was, lost in a world founded on damnation. Stuck.

__

If they hurt her, the thought sprang suddenly to his mind, _whoever they are, I'll kill them. I will. I will take my own two hands and I'll rip out their throats…_Part of T.K felt guilty for the thought, but another part, a much stronger, angrier part, agreed with him wholeheartedly. He nearly lost Kari once. He wouldn't let it happen gain. Ever.

***

"So, what's that…thing…called, anyway?" Kari and Josh were having their daily peep-hole conversation, chewing quietly on stale pieces of bread, being careful not to talk too loudly. It was still dark inside her cell; the shone hadn't shown itself once during the three days she'd been here, and there didn't seem to be any moon. Just a dark sky dotted with cold, distant stars. Outside her door the shuffling, hissing, rasp of their guards could still be heard from time to time, and there was always the possibility that the monster upstairs would finish whatever preparations he was doing, and come to kill her. Needless to say, the mood was tense. 

On the other side of the wall, Josh narrowed his eyes in thought, face scrunching up like someone in deep, hard concentration.

"I don't know." He answered finally, a resigned sigh escaping his lips. "All I know is that he made The Shadows."

"The what?"

"Those things outside, the ones who kidnapped you an' me. He calls them his 'shadows.'" He lowered his voice to barely above a whisper. "They're like…like…I don't know. There's nothin' like 'em, anywhere in the digital world. I don't even think that they're digimon." 

Kari rested her cheek on one hand, and urged the boy further.

"Anything else?"

"He's mean. Really mean."

"Oh."

Kari sighed, then propped herself on her elbows. "Okay," she said, a false cheer in her voice, "let's talk about something else." 

***

Hours later, the door to Kari's cell sung open, slamming heavily into the stone granite wall with a loud crash. Inside, Kari bolted upright out of a dreamless sleep, and instinctively pressed herself flat against the far corner, lip quivering and knees shaking in fright. 

"Josh" stood in the door way, flanked by nearly half a dozen Shadows on either side, hands on his hips as he strode inwards. Behind him, the Shadows hissed and laughed, nearly frothing with excitement.

__

Oh my God Kari thought. _This is it. They've come to kill me._

She tried to swallow the rising lump in her throat, paralyzed with fear as…it… drew ever nearer. 

"Ah, Ms. Kamiya…" he hissed, "…I do hope you're well. I trust you find the accommodations…suitable?" He laughed loudly as she did her best to glare at him, the twin pools of tears forming at her eyes betraying her fear. As his laughter boiled down to a mere chuckle, he waved in his Shadows. They seemed to almost bleed into the darkness, filling what had to have been the entire room, save her little corner. Kari felt a bead of sweat roll off the bridge of her nose and fall to the floor. This was it. She was going to die, right here, right now, cold and alone and frightened out of here mind. Right here in this…this…_pit._

The boy in front of her, noticing the now growing tears, smiled a cruel, wicked smile. 

"Problem, Ms. Kamiya? Unhappy, perhaps?" He drew in closer. "Would you like some company, perhaps?" 

Kari's eyes widened for a moment, then narrowed.  
"Wh-what do you mean? Is this some kind of trick?"

The boy's smile disappeared. "No, Ms. Kamiya," he said, face blank as he stood. "No trick. No games. I have grown weary of them, as I have of this body. Perhaps it is time…" he smiled. "Perhaps it is time we end this little masquerade, hmm?" With that, he began to grow, slowly at first, but then faster and faster. His skin darkened from its pale white to the complete opposite-black, deeper and darker than any shadow in the room. His limbs stretched and thickened, muscles swelling to grotesque proportions as his body filled the room. Two large, black, leathery wings sprouted out of his back, and sharp, piercing claws grew from the tips of his fingers. Finally, two burning red eyes peered at Kari from the darkness, large fangs gleaming. 

"W-what…what are you?" she asked, shaking and pressing herself more firmly against the wall, wishing more than anything that she could pass right through it.

The creature in front of her seemed to stand, its tall figure towering far above her. 

"I am Umbremon, child, lord and master here within the realm of the shadows. I am darkness personified." He leaned in close, disfigured face inches away from the young girl's. 

"Did I not promise you company, little one?" he laughed. 

Kari turned her face away, squeezing her eyes shut as the tears ran down her face.

"Didn't I!?" 

Umbremon shot forth one large, clawed hand and grabbed her by the throat, and began to tighten his grip.

Kari cried out in pain, tears now flowing down the sides of her face in a sob. 

"Y..y…" 

Umbremon loosened his grip on Kari's throat, and she fell to floor, gasping for air and crying all at once.

"Well?"

She coughed once or twice, nodding her head miserably.  
"Y-yes. Y-you pr-promised company…"

He smiled, clapping his hands together in delight.

"Very well," he boomed, "then company you shall have!" He snapped his fingers, and the Shadows rushed forward, eager smiles on each dark face, identical gleams in each crimson eye.

They were on her in a second, their strong, wiry hands gripping her wrists and ankles tightly, laying her out on the floor in a spread eagle position.

Kari struggled, trying hard to lurch herself free of their grasp, but it was no use. 

"What are you doing?!" she screamed, finally succumbing to fear and panic. 

"Stop! Stop! Please!" Her cries fell upon deaf ears as the Shadows tore the clothing away from her body, exposing her chest and thighs to the stagnant air and The Shadow's foul caressing. 

"Please…" she cried, sobbing, "Please….don't…."

There was a sudden, hard smack across her face, reducing the girl to a quiet whimpering. The Shadows began to lay harsh kisses on her face as they touched her all up and down her body, all at once, some going so far as to lick her, up and down her cheek, some deciding to venture further down to other places. Kari's face was swimming with tears, shame and fear pumping through her veins, thoughts of T.K., her friend, her love, comforting her as Umbremon slowly spread her legs.

__

I'm sorry, T.K. …

***

Kari sat, huddled in her corner as she felt the hours go by. Umbremon and his Shadows were gone, leaving her to her shame. Her despair. 

Slowly, quietly, Josh's voice began to leak through the wall until, at last, it reached Kari's ears.

"Kari? Kari? What's going on in there?" She didn't answer.

Josh pressed his face against the small hole, trying to catch a glimpse of his friend. 

"Kari…?"

***

The girl sat, dejected, utterly and completely miserable. She rocked herself back and forth, still weeping bitterly. 

"It's not fair." She mumbled to herself. "It's just not fair…" All her life she had tried to be a good person, forgave everything ever done to her. All her life, she had tried and tried and tried to live up to what was expected of her, to do good. And for what? So she could spend more than half her life fighting? So that she couldn't be happy without causing someone pain? So that she could be stuck down here in some filthy hole, raped while waiting for some monster to just kill her anyway? She had been happy with T.K., damn it, it wasn't fair!

"It's not fair…It's not fair!!!" Kari screamed suddenly, beating her fists against the wall, bitter tears falling down her face.

"It's not fair! It's not fair! Why? Why!?"

She sank to the floor, drawing herself into as small a ball as she could. 

"Why…why…why did it have to be me…?"

Kari fingered a small object hanging around her neck, the only thing left of her clothing. She grabbed it, and yanked it off her neck, whimpering in anger, despair, and, probably for the first time in her life, hate. Hate for whoever or whatever chose her to carry this burden that she now held in her hand. Hate for that monster above her that had stolen the last of her innocence. But most especially, she hated that little pendant that she now held -that golden, suffocating brand that marked her as a digidestined. Her Crest. She laughed, a harsh, bitter laugh that had never before come from her mouth. The Crest Of Light. What a grand joke, she thought. What a huge, cosmic joke that she should get a Crest of absolute purity, only to have it result in her defilement. She smiled, miserable. Yes, what a joke indeed. 

Forcing her self to sit up, Kari drew back her arm and hurled the Crest as hard as she could against the wall, wondering if and almost wishing that it would shatter. However, it merely bounced off, and landed on the floor with a quiet _tink_ of glass and metal on stone. Kari, however, didn't watch to see which dark corner it had come to rest in. She merely curled back into a fetal position, hugging her knees as she sat against the wall, not noticing that the rough stone scraped her bare skin in large patches. She was tired of caring Just so tired….

***

Now, by some coincidence, whether by fate or by fortune, her Crest did not land in some ambiguous corner of the cell, lost forever in the perpetual shadows. As it happened, it fell directly in front of the hole, in plain sight of Josh. Reaching through the small opening, he clasped the crest tightly in his hand and drew it back, thinking that whatever it was, Kari couldn't afford to throw it away. 

He still couldn't figure out what happened. One minute, he had been sleeping, while the sounds of Kari's own slumber coming through the hole, when all of a sudden she started to scream and cry. Looking through the hole, he could see the girl tossing herself against the wall and then laying on the floor, squirming, as if she were trying to escape some invisible, oppressive monster. He had tried calling to her in hushed tones several times, but having received no answer, and hearing her cries grow worse and worse, had foregone all precautions and started yelling. Now, she was quiet again, and from what he could see, leaned against the wall, curled up into a ball and murmuring to herself. 

"Kari…hey, Kari!" he called, as loud as he dared. "Kari, what's the matter? What happened?"

There was no reply.

"Kari! Answer me, please! Kari!"

The girl looked up, eyes bloodshot and barely open.

"What?" she croaked, face devoid of expression.

"What's going on? Why were you-"

Josh was cut off as Karin went into a fresh burst of sobbing.

"Oh my God…you saw it happen, didn't you? Oh my God…" she cried, her face in her hands. 

"I'm so sorry…"

"Saw what happen?"

Kari looked up from her hands. 

"What…" she asked, "what do you mean…you didn't see it?"

Josh's voice floated over from the hole, perplexed.

"All I saw was you, throwing yourself around. Are you okay?"

The girl rose, shakily, and crawled over to the hole. Looking through it, she saw Josh's eye, round and full of concern.

"What...what do you mean?"

The boy blinked once.

"I saw you, hitting yourself against the wall and lying on the floor."

"I was alone?"

"Uh-huh."

Kari reached through the hole and grabbed Josh's hand, squeezing it tightly.

"Are you sure?" she asked gravely. "Are you absolutely sure that I was completely by myself?"

"Yes! I already told you!"

Kari paused for a moment to consider.

"So then I...I wasn't….and he didn't…"

"Kari?"

She focused her attention back on the boy.

"I think we may have figured something out. I think that he put whatever happened to you in your head. I think he only made you _think_ that it happened." 

Kari's heart skipped a beat. Was that possible? Could it be that everything….was just in her mind? She concentrated, a new sense of hope filling her, willing whatever he had done to her to go away.

__

It wasn't real, she said to herself, _It wasn't real…_Several minutes passed in silence, Karin sitting with her eyes shut, afraid that if she opened them then it would all actually be true, that they were wrong…Taking a deep breath, she opened her eyes. 

Slowly, ever so slowly, her gaze traveled down the wall in front of her, across the floor, and finally to her knees, folded beneath her. Knees still clad in her pale pink pajamas. 

A sudden, insuppressible joy spread throughout her being, pain and the misery and the hate slowly ebbing to nothing, sponged away by the relief and happiness of the discovery. 

"Josh!" she cried, looking through the hole. "Josh, we were right! It wasn't real! Oh thank God, It wasn't real!" 

Grasped by a sudden idea, Kari began to concentrate on her surroundings, willing its true nature. When she opened her eyes this time, bright, buttery sunlight greeted her, the golden radiance filling the small cell. Even though it was only the outside that had changed, the room immediately took on a more friendly look, the corners no longer dim, the drab gray stone painted a glorious golden hue by the sun. Kari let out a sigh of relief, tears now of joy, her sorrow forgotten for a time.


	7. His Master's Voice

"Davis, are you sure that this is a good idea

"Davis, are you sure that this is a good idea?" Demi-veemon tugged gently on Davis' pants leg. The boy smiled nervously.

"No, not really."

"Then why are we doin' this?"

The smile disappeared, and Davis grimaced. 

"Because Kari needs us."

"What about…"

"Yeah, yeah, T.K. too."

Demi-veemon frowned.

"But why is it just us? Why couldn't we bring everyone else?"

"Because," Davis said. "I don't want to risk them. If there is something that can take over Kari, it could take over them, too."

"But what makes us safe?" The little blue reptile asked.

"I don't know." Davis admitted. "Maybe we're not. But we are the only ones who weren't affected by Malomyotismon's spell, remember?" The boy shrugged. "Maybe I have some sort of resistance."

Demi-veemon nodded, satisfied, and jumped up onto Davis' shoulder. 

"So let's go!"

Davis' smile returned, and he took his D3 out of his pocket. 

"Right. Digi-port- Open!"

He thrust his hand towards the computer screen, and a now familiar glow encompassed his body as he passed between worlds. 

***

Gatomon sat on one leafy branch, trying to find some sort of comfort in the shadowy boughs of her favorite tree. Every now and then she would run her claws across the bark, forming shallow grooves in the soft wood. 

Gatomon was furious with herself. No one had found a trace of either Kari or T.K., and she couldn't help but feel like it was her fault. Everyone, Patamon especially, insisted that she wasn't to blame, but she found herself doubting it. What did they know anyway?

There was a sudden flap of wings, and Patamon landed on a nearby branch. 

"Heya Gats." He said (how he managed to sound so cheerful was beyond Gatomon). "Whatcha' doin'?"

Gatomon fought hard to keep from rolling her eyes.

"Thinking."

"About what?" 

She eyed him irritably. 

"Stuff." 

The little orange digimon scratched an area beneath his chin, missing the hint entirely.

"Like what?"

"Like none of your business, that's what!" Gatomon snapped, finding herself increasingly pissed off. She calmed down after she saw the shocked expression on Patamon's face, but not by much. Climbing to her feet, Gatomon hopped from branch to branch until she reached the ground.

"Just leave me alone, alright? I don't feel like being bothered right now with a bunch of stupid chit-chat." 

With that, Gatomon stalked off, leaving Patamon disappointed and feeling incredibly dense as he sat by himself in the tree.

Gatomon, on the other hand, was making a winding, pointless path all over the city. The park, the baseball field, the tower, it didn't matter. All over, it was dark and cloudy, the feeling of coming rain heavy in the air. There had been a lot of those lately, Gatomon noticed, but it suited her just fine-she wasn't in the mood for sunshine. 

She continued walking down the gradually emptying streets and alleyways, seething with barely suppressed anger and half hoping that a dog would try to bother her, just so she could smack it around. It wasn't until she actually stopped for a rest that she realized where she was headed. Right across the street from her was the T.V station, satellite dishes turning slowly, dome reflecting the dull, gray sky above. 

Gatomon shook her head. Had she come here on purpose, without even thinking about it? No, of course not. Just a coincidence, that's all. Yes, she told herself, just a coincidence.

Wasn't it?

Swallowing the lump in her throat, the little cat dashed across the street, heart beating faster, and her mouth dry.

Why did she suddenly feel so nervous?

Slipping into the building through an open window one the ground floor, Gatomon padded softly up numerous flights of stairs, until she reached the roof. 

A stiff wind had picked up while she was inside, and now it ruffled her fur gently. The sky had grown even darker, and the scent of rain was closer than ever. 

Gatomon walked, slowly, across the deserted rooftop. Even thought the building had been repaired, she could still make it out- five tiles left of the edge, three above the air vent. Where Wizardmon died. 

Gatomon fell to her knees, tears already pooling in the corners of her eyes. This was as much of a grave as Wizardmon had, here in the real world. She came to it often, even more so after seeing his ghost that one time. She always came here alone, though. Always.

"Why…" she asked, like she always did, "…why did you have to die? Why did you have to leave me alone like this? And…" Gatomon wiped her eyes sniffling. "…Why haven't you come back yet?" She removed her gauntlets, then, laying them to one side, reached out with one paw and stroked the tile slowly, like she did every other time. And, like always, there was no answer for her. Just the sound of the wind and the first few drops of rain as they hit the ground. 

For what had to be the first time in her life, Gatomon felt absolutely, utterly alone. Wizardmon was dead, and now Kari was missing. The two people who meant more to her than anything in the world were gone, and might never come back. 

Also for the first time ever, Gatomon seriously considered killing herself. Right there and then. All she'd have to do is jump off the building, and she'd be reunited with Wizardmon forever. Would she be resurrected in Primary Village if she died in the real world? Wizardmon hadn't. On jump and she'd find out…just one jump…

She had nearly stepped onto the narrow ledge when a sudden…presence…filled her entire being. It was…warm, comforting…like the feeling she got when Kari would hold her after a nightmare. But it was different, in a way; it was familiar, like one she had known for years…

"Gatomon…"

The little creature's eyes widened, and she froze. The word was quiet, more like a whisper floating over the breeze, the faintest trace of a sound. It was like someone was calling her out of a half-remembered dream, but as real as the stone beneath her paws. 

Gatomon stood, transfixed by the single word, not daring to move or speak lest the strange, almost other-worldly feeling in the air be disturbed.

"Gatomon!"

She blinked, and the feeling was gone. The voice that called her was a new one. 

"Gatomon, where are you?"

The little white cat peered over the edge, and there, far below her, a small orange digimon flapped his wings in search of her. 

Closing her eyes, Gatomon smiled.

"Thank you…old friend."

***

"Damn it!" Umbremon slammed his fist against the arm of his throne. One of the Shadows stepped forward.

"Iss there a …problem, massster?"

Umbremon dismissed it with a wave of one clawed hand.

"The boy…" he fumed. "…I can't find the boy! He should have been here by now. There's now way he could've gotten lost in the digital word, not with the clues I left for him!"

The Shadow writhed, their excitement growing as did their master's anger.

He sat for a moment, their dark lord, then snapped his fingers. A Shadow stepped forth.

"Find him." Umbremon said, voice as cold and as hard as steel. "Find him and bring him to me. I will have that girls power along with his, and I will not be stopped by a child's stupidity! Find him now!"

With that, the Shadows took off, melting into the darkness of the large courtroom and disappearing out of sight. All but one. 

Stepping forward, it addressed Umbremon as reverently as had the others.

"Masster, he callsss for you." 

Umbremon nodded, a large lump rising in his throat. 

"Understood. Go."

As the Shadow departed, Umbremon stood, and walked slowly out of the large stone chamber and into a hallway. So. The Master wished to speak with him. The digimon hastened his stride, and for the first time since he concocted his plan, began to have his doubts.

***

T.K.'s foot sank into the ground with a nasty smooshing sound, coating the better part of his leg with a thick, slimy, sticky glop.   
Swearing, he began to tug his leg free, until it finally slid out with a sickening slurp. 

__

That's it, T.K. thought. _This place is officially pissing me off._ Looking at his leg and trying to brush off some of the vomitous brown goo, T.K. said a word that would've horrified his mother, one anyone would be surprised to hear him say. 

"F-"

***

"-U-C-K. Duck." Kari scratched the word onto a piece of rock with another, and passed it along to Josh. After discovering she could dispel Umbremon's illusions, or whatever they were, Kari's cell had become much more bearable. Privately, she was surprised that she'd handled the fact that she was a prisoner so well. Instead of screaming and crying all the time like she expected she would (and wanted to do), she had decided to distract herself by teaching Josh anything and everything she could. To her surprise, he proved to be a very apt pupil, and was learning very quickly. It had only been a day, and he already knew his alphabet. 

"D-U-C-K. Duck." Josh played with the new word, repeating it often.

"Kari, what's a duck?"

"It's a type of bird that likes to swim."

"Like that peng…pengwa…"

"Penguin."

"Right. Like that penguin thing we talked about?"

Kari had to smile. 

"Sort of." She said. "Except ducks swim on top of the water, and they can fly."

"Oh." Silence. Then,

"Hey Kari?"

"Hmm?"

"I was just wondering…" the boy halted. "I was just wondering…do you think we're ever gonna get out of here?"

Kari blinked. She had been wondering the same thing herself, actually. She was silent for a few moments, trying to decide the best way to answer. 

After a few seconds, the girl smiled and gave a quick thumbs up. 

"I'm sure we will." 

Kari always hated to lie.

***

"And have you found the girl?"

Umbremon bowed low, averting his eyes from the creature before him. 

"No, master. Her whereabouts are still shrouded from me. But I assure you, I will-"

"Silence." 

The command was spoken quietly, yet is carried force with it none the less. Deadly, over-whelming force.

Umbremon felt it. He felt it, and it terrified him, filled his veins with ice. 

"Find the girl, bring her to me. I can sense her, Umbremon, and her power has grown. I want it, and you will fetch it for me. Go, and do not fail. My patience is wearing thin, Umbremon…see that it does not wear out."

Umbremon gave another involuntary shudder. Keeping his gaze downcast, he backed out of the viewing chamber as quick as he dared. Shutting the large double-doors behind him, Umbremon nearly collapsed against them.

The Master was not a creature to be trifled with. 

Gradually, the fear flowing through Umbremon began to fade, replaced by a more familiar and welcomed emotion. Hate.

Umbremon hated The Master. Loathed and despised him, yet feared his power all the same. 

But not for long.

The digimon smiled. The girl was the key. With her, Umbremon's power would increase, more than The Master's. And with the boy…his power would be godlike. 

Umbremon nearly exploded with laughter. The Master didn't even know about the boy's power! The fool! As Umbremon entered his throne room, his spirits were the highest they'd been in months. Snapping his fingers, he called one of his Shadows.

"Bring me one of the Beta level prisoners. I'm in the mood for some entertainment."

The Shadow grinned, bowed curtly, and rushed off. Moments later, Umbremon was listening happily to the screams of a Gazimon as the Shadows tortured it.

Laughing as the digimon (Gazimon, Beta-level prisoner, number 528-73), slowly died, one thought ran through Umbremon's mind: Soon, very soon, his Master's voice would be silenced. 


	8. Promise

Davis was back before anyone in the house was awake

Davis was back before anyone in the house was awake. He and Vee-mon had searched the digital world for hours, without so much as one clue to T.K. or Kari's whereabouts. The only reason the two had even bothered come back at all was because Vee-mon needed food, and lots of it. The little blue reptile couldn't even stand up, he was so weak. As a matter of fact, he was asleep, and Davis was carrying him. 

Davis laid him on the bed, careful not to disturb him, then tip-toed out of the room down the hall, and outside. 

It was early dawn, dark, but light enough to see. The streets were deserted, eerily silent. Davis walked for a bit, not sure what to do. Too tired to think, too worried to sleep. There was just too much going on, and he just couldn't straighten himself out. First Kari liked him, then she didn't, then Yolei did, then Kari disappears without a trace, and then T.K. follows suit. It was all just way too much.

Davis kicked a can, then looked up in surprise when it landed in sand. He hadn't realized that he'd walked all the way to the beach. 

Davis stopped in his tracks. 

"Wait a minute…"

He walked onto the soft, white sand.

"Waitaminutewaitaminute-wait-a -minute!"

Davis cleared his head of everything that had happened in the last few days, concentrating on an incident that happened several months prior.

"The beach…" 

What had T.K. said?

"She…she's at the beach…"

Davis took off in the direction of the bus station. He had to get to Ken, and fast.

He knew where they were. 

***

Cody woke to an urgent knocking on his bedroom window. Rubbing his eyes, he sat up and looked over to it. Yolei was standing on the outside balcony, fully dressed, and definitely awake. How many times had she used that balcony to sneak over there? Cody had trouble keeping track. She always used to come over, smuggling one thing or another, hanging out.

Of course, that was before the digimon.

Speaking of which…

"Hey, Upamon." Cody shook the small digimon gently.

"C'mon, wake up."

Upamon opened his bleary eyes, mumbled "two eggs and a side of bacon," then rolled over and went back to sleep. 

Cody sighed and opened the window.

"Hey Yolei, what's-"

"No time." She said, cutting him off.

"Just get dressed and follow me. Everyone's meeting at the bridge. 

Cody pulled on a clean shirt and began to search for a pair of pants.

"Like I said…what's going on?"

Yolei shifted from one foot to the other impatiently. 

"Davis figured out where they are."

Cody froze in the middle of tying his shoes.

"He did? Where are they?"

"We're all kicking our selves in the head for not thinking of it sooner. Here." She handed him the other shoe. "I mean, when Davis told us…"

"But where are they?"

The girl grabbed his hand and pulled him onto the balcony. 

"The beach. "They're on that horrible beach."

***

When Yolei and Cody arrived at the Heighten View Terrace bridge, everyone else was waiting for them. Tai, Davis, and Matt looked grim, Joe cautious. Mimi and Sora looked worried, and Izzy and Ken kept their faces carefully neutral. All of the digimon looked nervous.

Ken spoke first.

"I don't know if this is going to work…" Hen looked around at the rest of the digidestined.

"…But we have to try. T.K. and Kari would do it for any of us, and we owe it to them."

He took a deep breath. 

"Is everyone ready?"

They were. Everyone laid a hand on Ken's, and he began to concentrate. From deep within him, a feeling of guilt and sadness, anger and fear welled up, was magnified by the dark spore embedded into his body. 

Already sweating from the effort, Ken began to focus those feelings, projected them. Images of his life as the Digimon Emperor flashed across his mind's eye, and he thought he would buckle from the strain. Then the others joined in, adding their own dark emotions. Jealousy, selfishness, fear, doubt…all these and mores passed through him, building and growing.

Finally, in the space in front of the children, a portal took shape, and began to grow. As the emotions and feeling coursed through Ken, he directed them to the singular goal of opening that gate further…bigger…wider…

There was a sudden shove behind him, and Ken was tossed headlong into it, all the others close beside him. 

It was different than when he traveled to the digital world- that was more like falling. In this gate, however, it was more like sliding through a tube at incredible speed; colors and shapes flew by him as he wound his way left and right, speeding by side passages and intersecting paths , until a circular green light appeared before them, far off in the distance. 

They shot forward, like bullets, towards what had to be the way out. Ken heard one of the girls scream, and a second later, they rushed into it…and landed in a heap on the sands of the dark beach. 

It was exactly as it had always been-dark, turbulent waters, everything looking dull and faded. The lighthouse had been rebuilt, and it put forth its ray of darkness ad readily as ever.

"Weird." Tai muttered. 

The entire group shared the sentiment. Shuddering, Ken turned to Joe.

"Do we have everything?"

The older teen nodded.

"Three weeks food and medical supplies for each of us." 

Joe patted his tote back.

"Just like old times, huh guys?"

Nobody smiled, nobody laughed. It wasn't a joke-more like an affirmation. 

"Yeah." Tai grimaced. "Let's just find T.K. and Kari, and then get the hell out of here."

***

T.K. laid down stiffly next to an old tree trunk, not caring that the course grass was scratching his bare legs. He'd managed to wipe off most of the mud, but he was still filthy. He itched. He stank. His stomach growled and his throat was dry. T.K. sighed. Man, was he hungry.

It had never been this bad, four years ago. Back then, even though they were trapped in the digital world, he and the others had always managed to find _something_. But here, there was nothing. Not one edible thing in four days. And the only suitable drinking water he'd been able to find was dew collected in leaves.

T.K. closed his eyes. Things were not going well.

There was a sudden beeping from his left pocket. Confused, T.K. reached into it and withdrew the only contents-his digivice. He stared at it. Ten faint red dots had appeared, clustered together. T.K.'s heart leapt into his throat. A red dot meant a digivice. A digivice meant digidestined. And what did ten digidestined equal?

He stood up, exhaustion forgotten. His friends were here, and knowing Joe, they had come much better prepared than he had. He was about to head off in their direction, when another dot caught his eye. It was faint, barely visible, and very nearly out of range. 

T.K. stopped breathing.

Kari.

He checked the other dots. They were headed in the almost exactly opposite direction from Kari. T.K. could catch up with one, but would lose the other. 

The boy grimaced. No decision-Kari came first. After all, he may never get another clue. 

The others would just have to wait.

Thus decided, T.K. headed south.

***

He reached his destination nearly two days later. Well, he guessed it was two days-after a mere half hour of walking, the sky had grown dark, and not from clouds. It was just suddenly, inexplicably night. So, for nearly two days, T.K. had stumbled through thorns, mud, creeks, and deep grass with nothing but starlight and one steady red dot in the middle of his digivice to guide him. 

He swore when the castle came into view. Loudly.

He knew that Kari had been kidnapped, and that she was a prisoner, but he hadn't expected a castle! He had expected…well, he didn't know what he expected, but not this!

T.K. sat down hard, wishing now that he _had_ gone to get the others. Kari sure want going anywhere soon, and T.K. couldn't even begin to think about how he'd free her.

He tried to think of a plan, running scenarios through his head, and each one ended in miserable failure. 

As each plan became more and more absurd, T.K.'s eyelids drooped lower and lower, until finally, who knows how many hours later, an unwelcome and restless sleep claimed him. 

***

The group was silent as they ate around the little campfire. Matt and Sora sat nearest to it, the girl leaning against him and the boy with his arms circled around her; to the right of them was Mimi and Joe, hands unconsciously touching as the two stared at the flames. Then came Cody, Yolei, Davis, Tai, Izzy, and finally, Ken. The latter two were farthest from the fire, talking quickly in hushed voices, every now and then a phrase or word floating to the ears of the others. Tai was tending the fire.

All of the digimon were near their respective partners, almost as if fearing an attack at any second. Gatomon and Patamon sat by themselves, apart by about four or five feet, the former staring sadly into the fire and the later simply staring. 

Cody was the first to go, yawning and then shutting his eyes in slumber. Davis and Yolei carried him to the tent Joe had thought to bring, before they too went to bed. The rest followed soon afterward-Mimi and Joe went, then Matt and Sora, then (Although much later), Izzy and Ken. Soon, only Tai and Patamon were awake-Agumon and Gatomon slept silently on the ground. 

After a few moments of poking the burning logs, Tai leaned back.

He and Patamon sighed at the same time. 

Surprised, Tai looked over at the small digimon.

"Somethin' the matter, li'l guy?"

Patamon fidgeted uncomfortably.

"No…not really, just…Just worried, y'know, about T.K. And Kari too, of course." He added quickly, casting a nervous glance over in Tai's direction. 

The boy smiled.

"Yeah, I know what you mean…"

There was a long stretch of silence. Then,

"Hey Tai?"

"Yeah?"

"You think they're okay?"

"I hope so."

"Me too."

More silence, broken only by the faint crackling of the fire.

"What about you?" Patamon asked suddenly. 

"What about me?"

"Anything else wrong with you?"

"Well, sorta, but it's not important."

"What is it?"

"It's nothing."

Patamon wasn't totally convinced, but he let it drop. Getting up, he scooted closer to Tai and sat down next to him. The boy greeted him by scratching him lightly behind his batwing-ears. Also, from this vantage point, Patamon discovered he could see Gatomon very clearly. He sighed again. 

"Do you think she's pretty?" he said, not even realizing the words came out of his mouth. 

"Beautiful 's more like it." Tai had a strange expression on his face, one Patamon didn't recognize-sad, wistful, and hurt all at once.

It took a second for them to realize what had been said.

"Hey wait a minute…"

"Tai…"

Then, together, "Who were _you_ talking about?"

They stared for a moment, then smiled, and then began to laugh quietly.

"So. Patamon." Tai grinned, "Who's the lucky lady-mon?" 

Tai got the distinct impression that the little digimon was blushing.

Patamon tilted his head in Gatomon's direction, then found a sudden interest in his feet. 

"Ah, I see." Tai gave the fire a few pokes with a stick.

"So have you two, uh, well…umm…"

Patamon interrupted before he could finish. 

"She doesn't…" he lowered his voice, just in case it might wake Gatomon. 

"…she doesn't know about it. And with Wizardmon and all…" he trailed off.

"Oh." Tai said. "Oh."

The two sat for a moment, their silent laughter already drained away by that unhappy world.

"…and you?" Patamon asked.

Tai looked at the digimon.

"Who were you talking about?"

Tai shifted his weight uncomfortably before he answered.

"Sora."

Patamon gave a little gasp.

"But isn't she…"

"Yeah." Tai stared at the fire. 

"Yeah, she is. But that…" he halted, unsure if he should continue. "…but that doesn't change how I feel. I mean, she's smart, she's funny, she's great to be around, and…can you keep a secret?"

Patamon nodded, and swore to it.

Tai, satisfied, continues.

"The thing is, Patamon, I think she's got to be the most beautiful girl on Earth, and I've…" he swallowed. "…I've been in love with her all my life. I just didn't know how to say it, and now I'm…too late…"

A snapping noise broke the silence, and both boy and digimon looked up.

Sora was standing there, not ten from where they sat. 

Tai jumped to his feet, face horror-stricken. 

"Sora! How long have you been there?"

She looked at him, and for once, Tai couldn't read her expression.

"Why? Telling dirty jokes or something?" Sora sat down across from Tai, and smiled gently.

"Or perhaps a little male bonding?"

Tai and Patamon looked at each other, and gave the slightest of shrugs. 

Tai sat back down, relaxing a little, and put on his usual, cocky grin.

"Dirty jokes. You just missed the one about the frog and the high school gym teacher. But really, what're you doing out here? I thought you were in the tent with…" Tai batted his eyelashes. "…with…" he let out an exaggerated sigh and clutched his hands to his chest.

"…with Matt! Oh!" he went into a fake swoon, just barely masking the bitter note in his voice.

Sora shrugged, an embarrassed blush spreading across her face, and smiled almost shyly. 

"Can't sleep. Too many people in one tent." 

Tai agreed, commenting on how much that must suck, and Sora affirmed it with a quiet "yeah" as she stared at he flames. 

The quiet returned, and brought with it a level of discomfort that had been lacking in previous silences. Patamon felt it, and decided that he needed to leave. Flapping his wings, he took off towards the tent, leaving Tai and Sora to themselves. 

Neither of them spoke, Tai doing his best to avoid looking at Sora. It was silent for a long time before she spoke.

"Tai…what's happened to us?" She asked it quietly, as if she wasn't sure she wanted to. But the suddenness of the question took Tai off-guard, all the same.

"What? What do you mean?"

Sora looked up from the fire, and Tai averted his gaze once more.

"I mean…what's happened to you and me? We used to be best friends and now…" she moved to Tai's left, almost touching him. He kept looking to his right. 

"…now…" Sora trailed off, studying the boy.

She moved again suddenly, this time directly in front of him. Cupping his face in her hands, Sora forced Tai's face to turn towards her.

"And now you won't even look at me!" There were tears in her eyes-Tai could see them shining wetly in the dark as they ran down her face. 

"What happened to us Tai? I mean, for months you've been like-like _this_ and…and…" She pulled herself in close to him, hugging the boy tightly around the neck and crying softly into his shoulder. 

"…I just want my best friend back…"

Tai didn't know what to do. After a few seconds, he reluctantly, awkwardly, put his arms around her in a hug. 

"It's…it's okay Sora. I'm right here, see? Still the same ol' Tai." he said, stroking her hair without even realizing it. Sora hugged him tighter. 

"No you're not." She whimpered into his shoulder. "You lie." 

"Do not." He ducked his head down so that it was level with hers.

"Does this look like the face of a liar?" he asked, his face the picture of innocence. 

Sora giggled softly, and sniffled.

"Promise?"

"Promise." 

"Cross your heart pinky swear?"

Tai smiled at the old promise they used to use, before giving the appropriate answer.

"Cross my heart and pinky swear, on my shoes and under-wear." 

The two laughed together, and for a moment, everything was back to normal, like it had used to be between them, before the digital world, before Matt, and before that one Christmas where she made her choice. The closeness, the familiarity, it all came back and they were happy. 

Sora, tears now dried, snuggled close to Tai, sighing. 

"Good." She said, oblivious to the boy's rapidly quickening pulse. "I missed you." 

She began to breathe more deeply and evenly, eyelids drooping. Tai swallowed. 

"S-Sora?"

She looked at him sleepily, eyes half closed.

"Yes?"

"I-I-" Tai swallowed again.

"I missed you too."

Sora smiled, and kissed him lightly on the cheek. 

"Good."

With that, she curled up next to him, nestling her head against his shoulder and yawning.

"You're…very warm, you know that?"

Within a few minutes, she was sound asleep. 

Tai watched her as she slept, struck by how beautiful she looked in the fire light- red hair blazing and skin tinted a glowing, golden copper color. Not really thinking, he continued to stroke her hair, watching as she sighed happily in her sleep. After a little while, she shifted her position, and ended up with both arms around Tai's neck, breathing softly against his chest (he was almost surprised that his own rapid heart beat hadn't woken her), and her hair smelling faintly of jasmine and her own sweet, wonderful scent. Tai sighed, and surprised himself by leaning forward and planting a slight kiss against her forehead. It would be easy, to just hold her like this util he fell asleep…but that wouldn't be very fair, to either Matt or Sora. All that would come of it would be embarrassment, and distrust between Matt , Sora, and himself, and that in turn could lead to making Sora unhappy…and if there was one thing Tai couldn't stand, it was making Sora unhappy.

So the boy sighed regretfully, and stood up. Being careful not to wake her, he slowly made his way over to the tent, dutifully carrying her the whole way, and laid her down gently onto her sleeping bag. He took a step back, and watched her sleeping figure once again, stopping only once to wipe his eyes.

"Stupid dust," he muttered, not even fooling himself this time. 

Not completely sure why he did so, Tai bent down once more, and whispered into her ear as softly as he could manage.

"I love you, Sora. Cross my heart pinky swear." 

The boy straightened, and walked quietly back to his place beside the fire. He laid down, content to let the flames slowly fade away into nothing more than smoldering embers, and shut his eyes. All the while, Sora's face kept floating before him, silent, intangible, and as unreachable as it had ever been. He sighed miserably. 

Drifting off to sleep in the dying light, Tai's last thought before consciousness slipped away from him was just how much the girl had actually heard of his conversation with Patamon, and he had terrible, wonderful dreams about it all night.

Over in the tent, Sora smiled in her sleep. 


	9. Hope

Author's Notes: Hey everybody. Just another reminder that I exist. Anyway, a little while ago, I decided to have a little private contest to see who had left the most reviews in all of my stories. This contest was not announced because I was afraid it would lead to insincere reviews. In any case, I would like to thank and to congratulate Tanya_Takaishi as the winner, and as her prize, I am now dedicating this entire fic to her. Yes, you heard right. Tanya, thank you for all of your support, without which I never would have gotten this far. 

***

"Look. Here's another one." Mimi indicated the small piece of dark green cloth hanging loosely on a protruding branch not far from where she stood. 

"And there's a footprint, right there in the mud." She said, crouching low to the ground and pointing one slender finger in the print's direction.

Joe showed up beside her, and offered a hand. She smiled prettily up at him, and took his out-stretched hand. Careful not to be too rough, Joe clasped it tightly and pulled her to her feet.

"Thanks, Joe," she said, brushing off her jeans and straightening her blouse.

"You always were such a gentleman." She gave him a particularly bright smile, then plopped a large pink cowboy hat on over her mane of brown hair.

"You figure he switched directions?" Joe asked, for once not going red at the girl's merest glance; this situation was far too grave for anything but calm, rational thought. Mimi shrugged.

"Hey, I just find the clues. You, Izzy, and Ken are the egg-heads. You figure it out."

To the casual observer, the comment might have sounded cold, but anyone who knew Mimi also knew that she was simply stating a simple truth: she did what she could do best, and expected everyone else to do the same. And at the moment, she was best at tracking T.K.

"Hey guys, look! I found another one!" Mimi ran off to the others, waving the scrap of cloth triumphantly in one hand and holding her hat in place with the other, hair streaming out behind her in a shimmering, silken flurry. 

Joe suddenly found rational thought a lot harder to maintain.

Trying to focus, he bent down to examine the footprint, hoping to learn something from it. After a few minutes of staring at the cloudy imprint, Joe concluded what he had previously thought-T.K. had changed directions. Again.

Joe sighed, and pushed his glasses farther up the bridge of his nose. T.K. wasn't making this any easier. Two days they'd been following him. Or at least the hoped they were following him- so far all they'd had to go on were some pieces of his shirt and a couple of footprints, all of which Mimi had discovered. Joe supposed he was the only one not surprised by this-he figured anyone who could spot a "sale" sigh at five hundred feet through a crowd of people would have no trouble spotting a few measly footprints. 

Also, every now and then, a red dot would appear on everyone's digivice, and Izzy assumed that that was T.K. However, it would be gone a few hours later as he moved out of range, and most often times didn't show up again for more than a day. 

T.K. definitely wasn't making this simple. _And of course_, Joe added silently, _nobody else is making it any easier._

For once, Joe was right in his complaints-Matt and Tai had fallen back into their old habits, each one at each other's throats practically all day, just like they used to. Except now, Sora wasn't helping. Literally. She refused to take a side, or to even tell them both off. Why? Joe could only guess.

Yolei and Davis weren't much better, and they constantly bickered. But then again, they seemed to enjoy it, so Joe pretty much left them alone. Izzy and Ken talked to each other most of the time, and Mimi was the same as ever. Only Cody was ever quiet.

Joe liked Cody.

Sighing once again, he took off his glasses, and then, after cleaning them sufficiently, placed them back on his face. Mimi's smiling face greeted him as his vision sharpened, and, caught completely off-guard, Joe blushed.

"Why Joe," she said sweetly, batting her eyelashes, "do you still think I'm so charming?" 

It had become a joke between the two over the years, and Joe gave his part of the punch.

"Mimi, you're as charming as they get." 

She giggled, he smiled, and they left it at that. It was two jokes, really; one was hers-it was funny because…well, because it was Joe-and the other joke, the underlying one, was Joe's. It was a joke in his view because he wasn't kidding. To him, there was no joke. 

"C'mon, ol' reliable." Mimi was smiling at him, and her hand rested comfortably on his shoulder.

"Everyone else is leaving. We'd better get going."

Joe nodded.

"Yeah…" he stood up, and let the girl lead him onward. 

"Yeah, we'd better."

***

T.K.'s eyes snapped open, and as the twin orbs searched the darkness around him, the boy actually wondered if he had gone blind. 

It took a while for his eyes to adjust, and when they finally did, T.K. found himself only slightly better off- all he could see was the solid black silhouette of the trees against the dark, midnight blue of the sky. There were few stars, and for some reason, that worried T.K. the most, made his stomach do a nasty little flip-flop as the boy looked upwards. And it was quiet. Not the sort of "woods-at-night" silence that isn't really quiet at all; nothing as normal as that. No, this quiet was a different kind altogether. As T.K. sat shaking on the ground, he was surrounded by a still, deathly, _unnatural_ stillness. He shivered, small chills running up and down his spine, and he couldn't help thinking about that old cliché. The one about being as quiet as the grave and all that. 

T.K. stood up, hands stretched out in front of him, once more struck by the thought of being blind. He put one cautious foot in front of the other, hands searching and feeling for any potential obstacles, shuffling and stumbling in the direction of the castle. He could barely make it out-a shadow of a shadow, as it were-but he didn't need to see it; the boy could have found it blindfolded (and in that blackness, he wasn't far off), because he could feel it. There are places that people just know to avoid, places that show up as large red dots on the radar screen of the human brain. They're places where feelings of dread and despair, of fear and of the most vile, cruelest hatred lurk in every corner and every stone, waiting to attack at any moment and laugh about it. The castle was one of those places, and inside T.K.'s head, a small, extrasensory radar was blaring as loudly as it ever had. It took nearly every ounce of the boy's will not to just run the other way, and even then, the only thing that really stopped him was the thought of Kari, and what would happen to her if he _did_ leave. Unfortunately for him, his imagination all too readily provided horrific pictures and images of just that, and T.K. found them more and more difficult to shake them off. Yet still he walked on, one foot in front of the other as he stumbled into what had to be a trap, never daring to think that he was already too late. He wasn't afraid-no, he was _terrified_. Knees shaking, sweat pouring down his face, bile rising fast in his throat as he stomped and tripped towards God-knew-what and wanting to puke every step of the way.

It was without a doubt the worst moment in T.K.'s entire life.

He walked for nearly an hour, falling often as the ground grew steeper and steeper. Soon it was fairly obvious that he was in some sort of valley, and the castle was a lot farther than he had originally guessed it to be. Now, factoring in the darkness and the rough terrain, T.K. figured that it had to be at least a day's walk away. That is, if he never stopped. And sped walked. Of course, he hadn't eaten in days, and he was getting tired more often…T.K. sighed heavily. He was so screwed.

As he walked, the trees around him grew taller and closer together, their shadows defying the impossible by becoming even deeper, and a thick fog rolled in slowly. He had never seen such a dark and gloomy place, save for his nightmares (and his years as a digidestined had left him with many), but there was something vaguely…familiar, about the place, and T.K. had the strangest feeling of dejà-vu. He tried not to let it bother him, but as the hours progressed, the feeling became more and more insistent.

At one point the apprehension and doubt grew into a full-fledged panic, and T.K. simply froze, hands dropping to his sides, whole body shaking violently. He felt like it was ice water flowing through his veins instead of blood, and his breath came in ragged, choking gasps. Not really thinking, T.K. slipped his hand beneath his shirt, scrambling frantically until his fingers closed around the small, golden pendant he kept hanging around his neck. The one with an even smaller inlaying of carved glass-his crest of Hope. 

He drew it out quickly, and clutched it firmly in one hand, concentrating on it, willing it to life. The crest-a yellow tinted piece of glass with a symbol etched onto it-sprung to life almost cheerfully at his touch, emitting a steady, warm glow with all the intensity of a candle flame. Though not terribly bright, the light of the crest did make T.K. feel better. Like maybe things would be better soon, that everything would turn out all right in the end. 

He held the crest for a few moments, staring at it; it was warm, pulsating with an inner power T.K. knew to be his own- that of indomitable, ever-present Hope. Soon, the warmth of the crest enveloped him, filling his being, and he slowly began to relax. He took a deep breath. He was still afraid-he'd have been an idiot not to be afraid- but the fear had lost its razor-edge, no longer controlled him. As a matter of fact, as the boy stood there, clutching the small pendant in one tightly clutched hand, encased in his own nimbus of light and warmth, he felt, if but for only a moment, at peace. 

Taking another deep breath, T.K. held his crest above his head as if it were a lantern, and stepped forward into the abyss. 

***

"Sora? Are you okay?" Matt placed his hand on her shoulder, and he tugged her gently to the back of the line the group had formed. Sora glanced at him, giving the boy a brief smile before she turned her attention back to where she was walking.

"I'm fine. Why?"

"I don't know. You just look kinda bummed out, that's all." Matt ran a hand through his hair, then shoved both of them deep into his pockets. 

"Anything you want to talk about?"

Sora shrugged.

"Nothing to talk about."

"You sure?" 

"Yeah."

Matt frowned, but remained silent. He wasn't sure whether or not he believed the girl, but he supposed that if she didn't want to talk about it, it wasn't his place to pry. Speeding up his pace slightly, Matt pulled in closer to the front of the line. 

Sora watched him go with mixed emotions. She really didn't feel that "fine." On the contrary, she felt awful. Not that she was sick or anything, but something deep down inside of her just didn't feel right. She _did_ want to talk…just not with Matt. Not now. She sighed.

"C'mon, it can't be all _that_ bad." 

Sora jumped, letting out a soft squeak of surprise as the voice suddenly appeared beside her ear. Heart thumping, she whirled around to face…Tai. 

He was walking placidly along side of her, a slight grin playing across his features as he watched her in amusement. 

"Tai!" Sora whacked him in the shoulder. 

"You jerk, you scared me!" she said, an indignant blush creeping up her features. 

"Why the hell did you do that?!" 

The boy shrugged.

"I dunno. You looked funny, though." 

Sora stared at the boy, hand clutched against her chest as her heart began to slow down, and glaring at the boy as her cheeks reddened, and she barely suppressed a giggle. 

"You…you…"

Tai laughed, and gave her a mock punch in the arm. 

"Aw, come on, Sora. Lighten up." His laughter died off, and the grin faded. Leaning in closer to her, he lowered his voice to a whisper.

"But seriously…is anything wrong? I thought you…I mean, _Matt_ thought you looked like there was something wrong." Sora's blush drained slowly from her face, and the giggle died in her throat. Tai was looking straight at her, his gentle brown eyes intense and piercing. The girl stared back into them, then nervously glanced away.

"There's nothing wrong with me. I'm fine." She looked back into the boys eyes, seeing her own reflection in them. 

"Really. I am." 

Tai looked like he wanted to say something, but thought better of it. The two walked along side of each other, and for a while, both were silent. It was Sora who spoke first.

"So…how are the cuts and stuff healing?"

"They're doing okay."

"And your leg?"

"It'll be fine, in a while." The boy smiled weakly, and winked at her. "I guess that means I'm not going out for soccer this year." As if to punctuate the remark, Tai's limp became much more obvious.

"Yeah…Guess not." Sora managed to smile back, and tucked her hands into her pockets. They walked together for a little while longer, before Tai headed back to the front of the line, where Davis and Yolei were involved in what hey were calling a "spirited exchange of ideas." Joe was doing all he could to keep them from killing each other. 

Sighing again, Sora trudged along slowly, thinking that if one more person asked whether or not she was fine, then she would just about rip their head off. 

Biyomon landed beside her, straightened out several feathers, and looked up at her partner. 

"Sora…" she said, looking at her with two big blue eyes, "…is there something wrong with you today?"

Sora sighed.

***

Kari glanced up as her food slot opened, and was beside the door in a flash. She had learned early that if you weren't there to take your food, the guards would just throw it in anyway, not really caring if you ate or not. If she was too slow on her feet, then her meal would end up all over the floor, wasted and of no good to anybody. 

As she grabbed the tray with grimy fingers, Kari overheard one of the guards (she wasn't sure, but she thought they sounded different than the shadows) talking to another. 

"Did 'ya hear 'bout wha' happ'ned, out thar in th' for'st?"

"Na."

"Well, seems thar was some sorta light out thar, kinda all y'llow an' bright." Kari's eyes widened, and she pressed her ear close against the door, straining to hear as much as she could. The guards, talking loudly and probably half drunk, were making it very easy.

"Light? Here? You sure you wasn't drunk agin?"

"I swear it on m' own rite han', I do. An' yeh know that's th' han' I hold m' drink in- yeh kin trust that oath, yeh kin." 

"There ain't no light here. Ne'er was. You musta bin drunk." 

"I say I weren't!" 

"Hey!" One of the guards suddenly shoved his face against the horizontal opening in Kari's cell door, it's glazed, red-rimmed eyes about three inches away from Kari's own brown ones. 

"Whatch-ya think yer doin,'? Git back in yer cell!" With that, the small slot slammed shut with a terrific clanging noise, effectively cutting off any further sounds of conversation from the guards. Kari took her tray, and set it down on the floor near the window. It was night outside-real night, not Umbremon's illusion-and the moon was full and bright enough to see by. Taking the hardened roll of bread and ripping off a small piece, Kari began to chew it thoughtfully. Checking the hole to see if Josh was still asleep (he had nodded off a few hours ago while Kari told him a story), the girl grasped the bars of her window and looked out at the darkness below her. 

All around the castle, as far as she could tell, was an immense forest. It was a dark, forbidding place, even in the daylight. At night time, it was down right horrifying. 

Karin squinted, peering into the inky black shadows of the trees far below her, thoughts and feelings of hope racing through her system.

Hope, that is, as in T.K.. She had no idea how he could have gotten out there; she didn't even know whether or not it was really him. But something in her gut told her that, somehow, T.K. was out there. 

Staring out across the ocean of trees, Kari sighed heavily, and felt a tear trace its path down the side of her face, realizing for the first time just how much she missed T.K.. Now that he was so close (she knew he was out there; he _had_ to be), it that much more painful not having him there beside her. 

Not exactly sure why, Kari blew a kiss out the window, blinking back tears and whispering quietly to herself.

"For you, T.K.. Please come soon."


	10. Black Eyes and Grilled Cheese

"We don't have to go through _there_, do we?" Yolei was standing on top of a tall outcropping of rocks, mouth slightly agape and on finger indicating a still far-off forest. Despite the distance between it and the group, everyone was nervous about it. It was nothing any of them could identify, really; it was just some un-named feeling that they couldn't quite ignore.

Yolei looked down into Davis' face, the owner of which was standing a few feet below her. She put her hands on her hips.

"I mean, can't we just go around it or something?"

Davis shook his head.

" 'Fraid not. Joe 'n' Mimi say the trail goes straight into it."

The girl crossed her arms, pouting. 

"Can't we just pick it up on the other side?"

"No. It's hard enough to find as it is, and it's only going to get harder. Besides…" Davis paused for a moment, then continued in a quieter tone. "…We don't even know if he made it through, or if he ever will."

Yolei sighed. 

"I just wish it wasn't so _big_…" The word 'big' was an understatement, to say the least. The forest, even though it was still days away, looked huge, a gigantic thing stretching on for miles, filling the horizon until it disappeared in the distance. 

"You finished up there?" Davis asked, still looking at the girl. Yolei gave on last scan of the landscape, sighed, and nodded.

"Yeah…help me down?" She looked back down to Davis and held out her arms.

Davis groaned, but held out his arms anyway, insisting that she didn't need help to jump three feet. Yolei ignored him, grabbed his hands, and proceeded to jump off the rocks, landing on Davis with a short "oomph" sound as they both crashed into the ground. 

Getting up on her knees, Yolei brushed off her hands on her pants and rearranged her glasses to the point where the were no longer sitting lopsided across her face. She then turned her attention to Davis, who was effectively pinned between her knees. The two stared at each other for a brief second, until Yolei finally stood up, heart beating quickly and a blush creeping into her features.

"Nice catch, doofus." 

***

Tai rubbed his chin as he paced back and forth, eyes narrowed in thought. Agumon stayed close behind him, looking at his partner with confusion.

"What're you doing Tai? I'm getting dizzy down here!"

Tai, concentration broken, stopped in his tracks and looked, blinking, at the small reptile beside him.

"Oh…sorry, buddy," he apologized, running a hand through his hair. "I was just thinking about something…c'mere, I'll show you…"

Tai led Agumon a couple of yards away then pointed at the ground.

"Take a look at this."

Agumon looked down. There, in the mud, was a large, clawed footprint. 

"Can you recognize it?"

Agumon shook his head.

"It's no digimon I know, Tai." He turned to his partner. "Should we tell the others?"

The boy thought for a moment, and then shook his head. 

"Not yet. This thing could be weeks old, for all we know…no sense in worrying everyone about it."

"I guess that makes sense…"

"Don't worry 'bout it, buddy," Tai said, breaking into a smile. 

"I don't think it's anything we couldn't handle if we had to. After all, that ain't no Machinedramon!" The two laughed briefly, but it was in a somber mood that they made their way back to the others. 

***

Umbremon clutched one arm of his throne with his clawed hands, hairline cracks and fractures running through the rough stone. His red eyes were narrowed, his teeth clenched tightly. Around him, The Shadows quivered slightly, excited by their master's anger. 

"Where is he?"

The question was cold, harsh, and the Shadows began to writhe with the sweet agony of their master's frustration, and anger, and the slight tinge of fear in his voice was delicious. Umbremon was beginning to regret his decision to create them.

He beckoned one of The Shadows forward. It came wordlessly, almost seeming to float through the gloom to its master's side, and stood attentively.

"Report."

The Shadow stood straighter, nearly bursting with pride at being chosen for such an important task. 

"We hasss sseen no ssign of the boy, masster…"

"And the rest of them?" 

"They hasss entered the plainsss, jusst beyond the foressst. We'sss are following them asss we ssspeak." 

"And?" 

"They'sss are headings sstraight for uss." 

Umbremon thought for a few moments. So. The digidestined were coming here, were they? It was impossible that they could know of his existence, which left only one of two possibilities: either they were following the girl's trail and were coming to save her…or they were following the boy. 

"And what secrets have you heard?"

The Shadow answered without hesitation. 

"The guardsss ssspeak of a profanity wandering aboutss it…they saysss there isss light in the foresssst…"

Umbremon smiled, fangs glinting dimly. So, all this time, the boy had been in this dimension. He was smarter than he seemed, to have figured out how to come here. He must have brought the other digidestined with him. Umbremon chuckled softly. The boy really was smarter than he seemed. Most human fools would have gone for the girl before even thinking of what might be holding her…before thinking about him. 

Very well. If the boy was so eager to come, then it saved Umbremon the effort of looking for him. The digimon exploded into deep, booming laughs, the sound echoing off the walls of his throne room. Digidestined or not, his plan was working out perfectly, and soon, those children were all going to die. 

***

It wasn't until he stopped to rest that T.K. realized he was an idiot. 

He had been walking for hours, plodding through on and on, only dimly aware of the thorns and branches that clawed at his skin. He would've kept on going, too, if not for the simple fact that he could no longer make his legs move. He was without a doubt completely, utterly exhausted. 

Finding a clear spot on the ground was little trouble, even in the darkness. This was because of two reasons: one, he had his crest, which was now giving off more than enough light to see quite clearly. The second reason was a little less comforting; there was space because everything was dead anyway. T.K. ignored it, and sank gratefully onto the cold, hard ground. He closed his eyes. 

About two minutes later, a thought crept up from the back of his mind. It came not in T.K.'s voice (as all his other thoughts to himself did) but, oddly enough, in Patamon's. 

__

T.K., it said, _T.K., you've gotta turn off the light!_

But why? Thought T.K. The light let him see. The light was good. 

To which Patamon's voice responded, _Because they can see it too._

They? They who? T.K. yawned. The light was warm and good, and he could sleep.

The voice let out a sigh that sounded so much like the little orange digimon that T.K. nearly opened his eyes to check if he was actually there. 

__

The ones who took Kari, idiot! 

T.K.'s eyes snapped open, and he sat up ram-rod straight. Duh. Big, freaking, duh. 

Whoever was in that castle knew exactly where T.K. was, knew exactly how fast he'd been moving, and exactly in which direction. T.K. could have kicked himself. 

He didn't know how he had planned to rescue Kari, but the element of surprise had just gone out the window. Now what?

__

Turn off the crest. The Patamon voice again. This time T.K. complied immediately, and the crest winked out, and for several minutes, he sat in the dark, shivering and wondering how long it would be until whatever had taken Kari would come for him too. It never did. 

__

Get moving. Not Patamon's voice, but his own. _Get moving now._ T.K. stood up.

That's when things got worse. 

An intense wave of nausea swept over him, knocking the wind out of him. He desperately tried to suck in a lung-full of air, but instead he fell into a loud fit of coughing, throat burning as he hocked up a mouthful of mucus. He spat it out, and tried once more to draw at least one quivering breath. The nausea slammed into him with full force as the world seemed to tilt and whirl all around him, black spots appearing at the edge of his vision, and his stomach twisting so violently that T.K. fell to his knees, clutching his sides. T.K. closed his eyes in a desperate attempt to block the dizzy feeling, to make the world seem right again, but it didn't work. Quite the contrary. Within seconds, T.K. had emptied his stomach of the very little he'd managed to eat, vomiting until he was reduced to nothing but painful dry heaves. 

Mercifully, the nausea went as soon as he was done. Moaning softly, T.K. managed to crawl, hands and knees, a few feet away, feeling weak and tired and altogether screwed. 

Exhausted, he collapsed onto the ground.

***

"I think it's following us." Tai grimaced at the footprint left in the deep, smelly mud-the same footprint he and Agumon had seen the previous day. He turned to the group. 

"I'm sorry that I didn't tell you all earlier, but…"

Matt cut him off sharply.

"Sorry? Is that all you can say? Tai, this thing could've killed somebody, God damn it!" Matt's face was red, livid with anger. 

"If you don't like the way I do things, then maybe you shouldn't have elected me leader!"

Matt took a step towards Tai, grabbed him by the collar, and yanked him close, lowering his voice so that the others couldn't hear.

"It could've killed Sora, Tai."

Tai's eyes widened a bit, the color slowly draining from his face, his bottom lip quivering slightly. His fists hung weakly at his sides.

"I-I know, but…" 

"No 'buts,' Tai. She may not know what's going on with you, but I do, and I don't want it interfering with your judgement. You got that? I won, you lost, get over it." Tai's fists clenched suddenly, and his eyes narrowed.

"What exactly is that supposed to mean, Ishida?" Tai spoke quietly, but with enough menace in his voice to make the other boy blink in surprise. 

"What do you mean, 'I won?' What the hell do you think this is, some sort of game with Sora as the prize? Christ, Matt, grow up." With that, Tai shoved Matt back hard with both hands, enough to send the boy crashing to the ground, and would've kicked him for good measure had he not seen Sora's face, surprised, reproachful, and horrified all at once. 

Tai took a deep breath, turned sharply on his heels, and stalked off behind a large clump of trees. Agumon gave everyone and apologetic look, then ran off after him. 

Joe was the first to speak.

"Well…I, uh, guess we'd better set up camp."

***

It was dark by the time the tent was set up, and Tai had still not retreated from his trees. Matt sighed, then ran a hand through his hair, a habit that people often told him that he and T.K. shared. He was standing at the edge of the camp, and behind him, the other digidestined were busy fetching wood, hauling water, talking, or cooking. Mimi's voice came floating over the rest of the noise.

"No no Joe…first you flip it and _then_ you slice it…"

"Oh yeah…sorry…"

Matt smiled, but only briefly. Dinner was going to be interesting tonight…

His train of thought was broken by a small hand slipping into his. Sora.

"Matt…why don't you apologize? I know you want to…"

The boy sighed. 

"Yeah…" he said. "…I was kind of a jerk, wasn't I?" He sighed. "I'm…I'm sorry Sora."

"For what?"

"For…well…I-I'm just sorry, okay? I wasn't exactly in best form today."

The girl squeezed his hand gently, and pulled him into a tight hug.

"Hey, it's been hard for everybody. Just remember, you're not the only one who lost their sibling…Kari means a lot to Tai, Matt, and he feels responsible for her." She laid her head on his shoulder, and gave him an extra squeeze.

"Just like you feel responsible for T.K." 

Matt held her a few moments longer, then kissed her lightly on the forehead.

"You're right," he said, "I'll apologize."

***

Tai, sitting at the base of one of several small, grubby trees, threw the rock as hard as he could, watching it bounce off into the distance, smiling with grim pleasure as he imagined the rock to be Matt's head. Agumon sat quietly beside him. 

"Tai…" Agumon began.

"I don't want to hear it." Tai interrupted, hurling another rock. Agumon snorted.

"I don't care whether or not you want to hear it, Tai, I'm gonna say it!"

"What then?"

"While I agree that what Matt said was wrong, you have to understand that both of you have been under a lot of pressure lately. We're all tired and frustrated and worried, and something was bound to happen sooner or later. That's the way this world works- it gets to you. I don't know if you or any of you other humans can feel it, but we digimon can. Now I'm sure that Matt didn't really mean it, but if you're gonna sit out her and sulk, you can count me out. Whatever they're cooking over there smells really good, and I'm hungry!" With that, Agumon stood up, brushed himself off, and stomped back towards the campsite, grumbling to himself. 

Tai watched him go, wondering why everything was suddenly so bleary.

"Um…hey…"

Tai glanced up in surprise, then began to rub his eyes furiously when he saw Matt standing above him, hands in his pockets. 

"Uh…dust causing you trouble?" Matt smiled weakly.

Tai shot the boy a withering look, and turned away.

"What the hell do _you_ want?"

Matt's smile, weak as it was, succumbed to its fate and died. 

"Listen, Tai, about what I said…"

"Stuff it."

Matt groaned inwardly. This wasn't going to be easy. 

"Tai, just listen for one minute…"

"I said, 'Stuff it!'" Tai glanced over his shoulder.

"Just screw off, will ya'? I'm not interested in hearing about you, or Sora, or my bad decisions, or whatever else you've got to say, so just…go away." Matt gritted his teeth, and grabbed Tai by the collar.

"Hey! What the hell do you think-"

Hauling him to his feet, Matt spun Tai around, and punched him. It was a beauty- a nice right hook that landed square on Tai's eye, a bluish bruise forming almost instantly. Tai sprawled backwards.

"I'm sorry, Tai. I was wrong."

Tai blinked in pain and surprise, touching his face gingerly. 

"What?"

"I'm sorry for what I said; it was completely inappropriate, it was disrespectful, and it was just plain wrong." Matt took a deep breath. "That's why I came- to apologize. I'm not sure what came over me…what with T.K., and that thing following us…I've been worried sick that something might happen to Sora…" The blonde boy kept his gaze on his shoes, and Tai stared in shock.

"I know it's no excuse…"

Tai jumped up suddenly, and grabbing Matt by his own collar, punched him in the face as hard as he could. Matt went down. Hard. He clutched his nose, now gushing blood, and looked up to see Tai smiling down at him. The brown haired boy extended one hand, shaking the other one in pain. Matt stared for a few seconds before Tai spoke. 

"I understand. She drives me nuts too…Friends?" 

Matt stared, then began to smile, and then finally to laugh. 

"Friends."

Grasping Tai's hand firmly, he hauled himself up and clapped him on the back. Tai laughed as well and the two staggered back to camp, nursing a bloody nose and a black eye in the best possible spirits.

***

"No no no…Joe, it's like _this_…" Mimi grabbed the spatula, slid it under the grilled cheese sandwich Joe was attempting to cook, and flipped it artfully. 

"Honestly Joe, can't you even cook a grilled cheese?" 

"Hey, this is coming from the girl whose mother is famous for her 'strawberry fried rice,' remember?"

Mimi smiled prettily. 

"Hey, in my house, it's either learn to cook or die of food poisoning."

"I can relate!" Tai yelled from across the camp, and a couple people laughed. Everyone else had never met Mrs. Kamiya and her "special recipes." 

Joe shrugged, and re-arranged his glasses. 

"I'll suppose I'll get it sooner or later…" He tried to slide the spatula under the sandwich and flip it smoothly, like Mimi had showed him, but somehow managed to screw up. Again.

"…Perhaps later then…"

Mimi sighed with good natured exasperation then scooted in closer to the boy. 

"Here," she said, grabbing the boys hand and positioning the spatula correctly between his fingers.

"Like this." Guiding Joe's hand with her own, while her other was around Joe's neck for support, Mimi slowly moved the spatula under the sandwich, and she and Joe flipped it onto a plate. It was a perfect golden brown, and the cheese was melted just right. 

Smiling, Joe turned to face the girl…and found her less than two inches way. She was smiling at him with that particularly bright smile that she reserved especially for him, the one that seemed to light up the entire area. Joe forgot what he was about to say.

"See?" Mimi said quietly, almost whispering. "Was that so hard?"

Joe swallowed the lump in his throat, knowing that he was blushing furiously and that there was nothing he could do about it. 

"I, uh…um… that is…" Joe didn't even know what he was trying to say, only that it wasn't working. 

Mimi suddenly squeezed his hand, and a bolt of white hot electricity shot through Joe's entire body, making him inhale sharply.

"M-Mimi, I-I-I-" she cut him off by placing her mouth over his, eyes closed, holding him close with her one free hand. 

Without realizing it, Joe wrapped his arms around her waist, closing his eyes as he kissed her back. For a second that seemed an eternity, the entire world slipped away, leaving just the two of them Then…

"Woo-hoo!"

"Alright Joe!"

"About time!"

The two opened their eyes abruptly, and broke off the kiss in surprise. All around them, the other digidestined were smiling down at them. Tai and Matt were clapping. 

Joe and Mimi blushed as everyone rushed to congratulate them.

Gommamon gave Joe a hearty slap on the back, laughing.

"It's about time you two went and hooked up! I was getting' impatient!"

Palmon poked Mimi in the shoulder.

"Hey Mimi! This means your last birthday wish came true!"

"Palmon!"

"Well it does!"

"Hey Joe," said Davis, "Way to go, buddy!"

"Yeah, bravo!" said Tai. 

"Nice job!" said Matt, and both boys clapped and bowed.

Cody gave them both a quiet thumbs-up while Armodillomon cheered loudly in his Texan drawl.

Yolei punched Joe on the shoulder, and laughed as Hawkmon began advertising the latest line of Valentine's Day chocolates available in Yolei's shop.

"You go get 'em, Tiger!" laughed Gabumon.

Ken simply smiled as he watched the whole scene, Wormmon laughing and dancing around with Veemon. Gatomon only displayed mild interest in the entire scene, and Patamon sat next to her, smiling sadly.

Izzy, who had been noticeably absent during the official Embarrassing Of The New Couple event, suddenly burst out of the tent. 

"Guys! Hey guys, c'mere quick!"

As they gathered around, both the digimon and children were surprised to see, on the tiny screen of Izzy's digivice, two small, steady red dots hovering around the edges. For a moment, everyone was silent. Tai spoke first.

"I want everyone packed up and moving in ten minutes. We're going after them. Now."

***

T.K. tried desperately to sit up, but found it impossible. He simply didn't have the strength anymore. He coughed violently for a few seconds, and a coppery taste filled his mouth. He spat, and a small splatter of blood sprinkled the ground. The boy stared at it for a few seconds, the reality of the situation really beginning to hit home. 

"Oh…oh God…"

He sank slowly to the ground, unconsciously curling himself into a ball and shaking.

"…oh God…"

A spasm ran through his body, and for a moment, T.K.'s limbs went stiff. 

"…Please…keep Kari safe…"

As T.K. closed his eyes, he saw a bright light moving towards him, and in the center, an angel, glowing and radiant, calling his name.

__

That's funny…he thought as his consciousness finally ebbed away.

__

I've never heard of an angel that looks like a pig with wings…

***


	11. The Calm Before the Storm

"He's coming around…"

T.K. opened his eyes very, very slowly, and was surprised to see Patamon looking back at him. 

"Hey," the little digimon said, "How ya' doin'?"

T.K. blinked once or twice, staring at his partner with a look bordering on shock.

"Patamon…"

"Yeah?"

"I feel like crap."

"I'm not surprised. You look like crap, too."

T.K. smiled faintly. 

"Gee, thanks buddy," he said

"No problem. Anytime," Patamon responded cheerfully. T.K. tried to sit up, failed, tried again, and failed a second time. Already exhausted, he looked to Patamon, who was now hovering about three feet above his chest.

"W-where's…"

Patamon answered before T.K. could finish.

"Everyone's outside, waitin' for you to wake up."

"What? Out side…?" For the first time since he had woken up, T.K. took note of his surroundings. Rather than the ground, he was laying down on a thick sleeping bag, and rather than the dark sky he'd grown accustomed to, yellow nylon hung above his head.

"They're all planning an assault."

T.K. snapped his attention back to his partner. 

"What?"

Patamon land next to T.K.'s head. 

"They've got Biyomon, Tentomon, and Hawkmon scouting from the air, and a few of the others are looking around on the ground. We're trying to find a way into that castle without letting anyone know we're here." 

"Have you been able to find out anything about Kari?" asked T.K., struggling to keep from getting his hopes up. 

"We've got a pretty good idea of where she is," Patamon said. "At least, we think we do. Izzy says that triangulation with the digivices isn't easy. Don't worry-we'll get her back." Patamon gave T.K. a small, reassuring smile.

T.K. sighed. 

"Could you send Tai in?"

Patamon nodded, then took off. Tai entered the tent a few minutes later.

"Feelin' better?" Tai asked as he crouched on the opposite side of the tent. T.K. shook his head no, no he wasn't.

"I hope you know that I lost the element of surprise for you."

"I figured."

"Think there's a trap?"

"Definitely. Hell, I'd be worried if there wasn't." Tai scrubbed his hand through his hair. "So the question becomes this: what're we gonna do about it?"

T.K. sighed again.

"Fall right into it, I guess." He said listlessly. He looked up at the older boy.

"I mean, we don't have much choice, do we?"

Tai smiled grimly.

"No…I suppose we don't."

***

Kari stared out through the bars of her window. Night-real night- had fallen, and the stars were coming out in scores. They weren't very bright, but since nothing in the dark world was anyway, it hardly seemed to matter. A cool, almost pleasant breeze shoved its way into her cell, and she closed her eyes as she let it move across her face. It suddenly occurred to her that her thirteenth birthday was coming up. How odd that she should think of it, here, now. She sighed, and moved away from the window. 

Out side her cell it was quiet, the guards either asleep, gone, or (for all she knew) not even there. She didn't bother listening at the door. Since she'd found out that T.K. was in the forest below her, she'd heard nothing from the other side. 

Josh, too, was quiet. Never that loud to begin with, the boy had become withdrawn and spent much of the time quietly in his own cell. Kari couldn't help but miss their conversations. They had, after all, been largely responsible for keeping her sane over the last few days.

Kari wiped a few strands of dirty, greasy hair out of her face and thought that she had never wanted a shower so badly before in her life. She paced her cell restlessly, then knelt down by The Hole. 

"Hey, Josh. You awake?"

He wasn't, and Kari found herself undeniably alone.

Sighing, she returned to the window, and once more, unbidden thoughts of the real world came to her mind. What would she be doing now, if she was there? Probably picking out decorations for her party. She was a little old for a birthday party, but she enjoyed them anyway- any excuse for decorations, that was her motto- and she'd probably call T.K. to help her set them up, and then, of course, she'd have to start hinting at presents that she wanted, which would thoroughly frazzle T.K., and send him into one of his fits of bashful confusion that Kari had always found adorable. She smiled at the thought- she'd done that to the boy last year, and it had worked perfectly. Of course, that year things had been…different…between her and T.K. Back when both of them were still "just friends." 

Kari wondered idly why she had never really liked any "other boys", but the answer was pretty obvious to her-"other boys" weren't T.K. "Other boys" hadn't seen the thins that she and T.K. had seen, hadn't done the things she and T.K. had done. "Other boys" didn't know what real sacrifice, or pain, or joy was. _They_ had never really risked themselves for anything, had never even thought about what it was like to be so scared that they couldn't even move. What it was like to die.

They had never seen monsters. 

It was no surprise, then, that Kari found all the boys in her class to be so…childish. The girls, too. All of them wrapped up in their own little lives and problems, none of them ever realizing how good they had it. Even Davis, Yolei, and Cody (him to a lesser extent) had been the same way. That had changed.

Of course, Kari admitted, compared to Ken, her problems were pretty much nothing. 

_So it all becomes a matter of perspective, doesn't it?_ She thought to herself. 

__

What's important to one is trivial to another, and vice versa. All perspective. Kari, for lack of anything better to do, was getting philosophical. She had been afraid for almost a week now, and she was just too tired to bother with fear anymore.

_So what about belief? That depends on perspective. Couldn't it be said that belief can be based solely on perspective? And if what someone believes is what they see as truth, then doesn't truth, itself, depend on perspective?_ Kari yawned, and her thoughts suddenly turned back to T.K., and then again to Gatomon, her brother, and then finally to her parents. Thoughts and images swirling around in her brain, Kari closed her eyes, and before she knew it, fell asleep. 

***

The high, piercing whir of Digmon's drill slowed, then finally came to a stop. 

"It's done, ev'rybody." He drawled, looking back over his shoulder.

"It goes all the way under, jus' like you asked, Tai."

"Great work," the boy responded, nodding slowly as he did so. 

"Now, everybody…do you know what to do?"

The digidestined, plus their respective partners, nodded. They knew the plan.

"I don't know Tai…I mean…" Joe was speaking, cleaning his glasses nervously.

"…I mean, this plan of yours…It's nuts!"

Tai smiled in response, a sort of cold, cynical smile that never reached his eyes, and sent shivers through the entire group. It was smile that belonged more to a general than anything else. 

"You're right," he replied. "It is nuts. But you know what? It's gonna work."

Joe shoved his hands, which were shaking badly, deep into his pockets. 

"I-I guess so…" his voice quivered slightly, and he began to wheeze. Mime laid a hand on his arm, offering whatever comfort she could, and that seemed to calm Joe down a bit. He nodded at Tai, letting him know that he'd be alright, then pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose.

Tai looked around, studying the faces of the others. For the most part, they were all grim. Some, like Mimi, looked merely afraid. Izzy stood with Ken, slightly aloof, presumably deep in thought. Cody stood near Joe, looking almost lost but resolute. A bit behind them, Sora was clutching Matt's arm tightly (Tai found himself glancing over those two quicker than he'd intended- far more quickly than the others, anyway) and beyond them, Yolei and Davis stood much the same way. He could read no expression from any of the digimon. In light of the coming battle, their faces were stern, no clue as to what any of them were thinking. 

There was the soft _snap_ of a twig breaking, and everyone turned in the direction of the noise- and saw T.K. He looked awful. His eyes were puffy and bloodshot, his hair hanging down in filthy, greasy strands over his face. His skin was pale and shone with a light sheen of sweat. His breath came hard and ragged, and he was leaning heavily on a warped tree trunk. He literally had to drag his feet to move at all. 

Before anyone could say something, T.K. spoke.

"I'm going.' That's all he said-just those two words, and it still seemed to drain him. His shoulders sagged a bit lower than before, and his cheeks flushed an unhealthy, ruddy pink. The affect of it against the rest of his pale face and his red, sunken eyes was ghastly. 

"No."

Matt was the one who spoke. He untangled Sora's hand from his own, then walked the five or six steps forward it took to reach T.K. He laid his hands on T.K.'s shoulder, and looked right at him with his own set of crystal blue eyes.

"You're staying right here, T.K." 

The boy shrugged off Matt's hand, and pointed one weak finger at him.

"Yuh-yuh-hu've g-gotta let me guh-go. I huh-huh-have to…"

Matt shook his head no. 

"Sorry, squirt."

And then he decked him. 

Not too hard-Matt didn't want to hurt him, after all, but hard enough to knock him out. And in T.K.'s condition, it really didn't take that much. The other digidestined gave a collective gasp, some going so far as to cry out. One look at Matt's face, however, was enough to quiet them. There were tears, faint but visible, pooling in the corners of his eyes. Tai put an arm around his shoulder.

"You had to do it, man."

"I know." 

Matt looked at the sky, still pitch black, with tall, ghostly trees looming up all around him and T.K. crumpled at his feet like a rag doll. 

"I know."

They stood for a little while longer, just a couple of minutes, before Matt shook off whatever thoughts he had.

"Right." He said. "Let's go." 

Bending down, Matt and Tai both picked T.K. up, and carried him into the tent. With that done, the digidestined then set out for the castle. 

***

When they arrived, the children were simply blown away by the sheer size of the structure before them: the castle's walls were impossibly huge, shooting up towards the dark sky and disappearing far up in the distance, as smooth and as black as polished obsidian. The castle was in the middle of a large clearing, hemmed in on all sided by the thick forest that the digidestined had just come through. It was almost completely silent, save for the wind as it whistled and screamed around the invisible turrets and towers far above. They could see the doors easily- they were well over twenty feet tall, made of solid iron and situated smack dab in the middle of the nearest wall. Above them was an intricately carved archway, depicting various creatures (Some humanoid, some animal, but all definitely digimon) being tortured, maimed, raped and killed in the most gruesome and painful of ways, all by what looked to be nothing short of demons. They were twisted, vile-looking things, neither human, nor digimon, nor animal, but some horrible mix of them all. Just looking at it made Tai sick to his stomach. 

He looked to the rest of the digidestined, if for no other reason than to get those horrible carvings out of his sight. He could see that the others felt much the same way. 

"Alright everybody," he said, being careful not to let his voice crack or even waiver; the leader's not allowed to be afraid, after all. 

"You all know what you have to do…Let's go." 

They nodded, and the group split. Cody, Matt, Yolei, Ken, and Davis went one way; Tai, Sora, Joe, Mimi, and Izzy headed for the doors. 

The walk seemed to take forever, but once they reached the doors, Tai couldn't help but feel that it had gone by in the blink of an eye. He reached out with one hand and gave one of the doors an experimental push. It opened a crack; there was no lock. 

He signaled the others, and they began to push, shoving the door open one inch at a time, until they were finally able to squeeze through. 

They stood in the hall. It was empty.

"This sucks," Tai said suddenly. "It's too…no, never mind. I'm not gonna say it."

"Say what?" This was Izzy, who was standing a few feet behind the older boy.

Joe answered his question:

"That it's been too easy. No guards, no locks, no nothing." He pushed his glasses further up the bridge of his nose, staring hard into the gloom. "That's it, isn't it?"

"Yeah," Tai nodded. "I just didn't want to be the one top say it. Cause, you know, when the leader says it's 'quiet-too quiet,' or some shit like that, then you know something bad is gonna happen in, like, three seconds." 

The other digidestined laughed quietly to themselves, a sort of high, panicky laugh that sounds half mad and half terrified. It ended quickly, leaving the children alone in the now pressing darkness, the gloomy hallway stretching on interminably before them. They walked along, slowly, cautiously, shoes and claws and paws making hollow _thud-thuds_, _click-clacks_, and _fap-paps_ against the stone beneath them. Biyomon's wings beat against the stale air at a constant rhythm, making an even staler wind against the faces of some of the children, blendeding together with the faint humming of Tentomon's wings as they scissored rapidly through the air. 

Sora unconsciously moved closer to Tai, pressing herself against his side. Her eyes were darting about constantly, trying to see anything in the darkness around them, and scores of gooseflesh ran up and down her arms. Tai noticed this, and put a comforting, if not awkward, arm round her shoulder, and gave her a light pat on the back. She looked at him with mild surprise printed on her face. He winked, and she smiled faintly. This all took place in a matter of seconds- not more than ten at the most- and Sora moved away from the boy again, striding forward more confidently than before. 

Behind Sora and Tai was Izzy, and behind him, Joe and Mimi. They were walking with their hands linked and squeezing each other tightly, a fact Izzy pretended he didn't notice, and kept their gazes mainly on the floor ahead of them. They did, however, constantly steal glances at one another from time to time (another fact Izzy wished he didn't know) and would every so often whisper something. 

The digimon were silent, walking stoically onward, expressionless. Whatever the human children felt, their partners felt it more- some sense of forbidding doom, something closely akin to watching an approaching storm. Dark thunderclouds were on the horizon of their little adventure, and moving fast; soon, the storm would break, rain would fall, and lightning would strike. It was only a matter of when…and where.

Whatever else ran through their minds, one thought was consistent: the Plan had to work, _had_ to, or everything would go straight down the pipes.

Washed out by the storm. 

***

T.K. awoke to the sound of thunder, a sharp bullwhip's crack splitting the sky with its intensity. It faded, rumbling in the distance, and was gone as quickly as it had come. He sat up, and found that he was in the tent. He eyed the array of objects around him with bleary eyes, having to spend several seconds to discern what he usually would have recognized instantly-the shadow in the corner ceased to be a shadow and became a flashlight. T.K. grabbed it, and flipped it on, thinking (oddly enough) of that quote in the Bible, and he found himself mumbling "let there be light"-and there was. Instantly, a beam of white light shot forth, and he could now see. _And he saw that the light was good_, some part of his brain said helpfully. Great. Wonderful. Now what?

T.K. sat up, and his head suddenly felt as if he had tried to blow his nose with an ice pick. He squeezed his eyes shut in some effort to block off the pain, but it didn't work in the slightest. He didn't think it would. He stumbled around for a bottle of Tylenol (there _had_ to be Tylenol, Joe wouldn't come without something so basic as _Tylenol_ for Christ's sake), found it, and popped four of the little white pills into his mouth and dry swallowed the bastards. It was one bad-ass head-ache, after all. Then he got up, and crawled outside.

The night air was dry, but the cool wind spoke of coming rain and the far-off sounds of rumbling thunder said there'd be a lot of it. There was going to be one hell of a storm. T.K. had no way of knowing this-he just felt something in the air that he couldn't describe, something just…_electric_. That's it. _Electric._

Patamon, briefly illuminated by a bright flash of lightning, flapped seemingly out of nowhere and landed in T.K.'s arms. Even in the dark, T.K. could tell that the little digimon's eyes were frightened. 

"I'm going after them." The statement, punctuated by a loud clap of thunder, left little room for argument. Patamon didn't even try. Rather, he nodded, and took to the air. There was another flash of lightning, bathing everything in a strange, purple-white light, followed by another terrific blast of sound. The wind picked up, tossing T.K's golden air with wild abandon, bringing the scent of rain even closer. 

They left without another word, leaving the camp deserted of all but shadows. Lightning flashed, thunder roared, and the wind brought rain ever closer.

***

Tai stopped suddenly, and the others pulled up behind him.

"Tai?" Sora asked. "What's the matter?" The boy waved her silent, waited a few moments, then, under his breath, mumbled:

'There's something here." 

The children pulled in close to each other, frightened eyes scanning the darkness, muscles tensing. The digimon formed a protective ring about them, hackles raising, growls rising in throats. For a moment, nothing happened. 

Then the Shadows charged. 

They poured forth from the blackness, eyes gleaming and teeth bared in a hundred identical, feral grins. All at once there was pandemonium, the children shouting orders to their partners, the Digimon screaming harsh battle cries as they fought back. The Shadows screamed, not of terror, or pain, but of sheer delight. Here, now, was the slaughter they had been promised. Here was their prey!

"Agumon!" Tai was shouting as loudly as he could, and the small digimon knew what the boy wanted. 

"Agumon digivolve to…" The small reptile was encompassed in an orb of bright light, and the Shadows recoiled in horror at the sight of it.

"…GREYMON!" The orb grew, expanded ten, then twenty times its original size, and burst. The place where Agumon had stood was now occupied by a Tyrannosaurus-like horned dinosaur, a towering beast of muscle. The head was shielded by a helmet of dark brown bone, from which one long horn, curved sharply upward at the end, protruded from either side. At the end of it's scrawny arms (only comparatively so-the biceps were as big as Tai's body), as well as it's strong, thickly muscled legs, grew claws, sharp and over three feet in length, and behind its body was attached a thick, powerful tail. 

"GGGROOOOOWWWRRRRR!"

The roar was loud-bone shakingly loud-and The Shadows paused briefly.

Tai didn't waste his chance. Cupping his hands around his mouth, he shouted up to his partner.

."Greymon! Fry 'em!"

Greymon didn't hesitate; immediately, a glow could be seen building up in his throat, his mouth. Flame licked out from it, and Greymon suddenly thrust his head forward, mouth gaping.

"NOVA BLAST!"

A ball of fire, white hot in its intensity, flew out of Greymon's mouth. The release had a concussive force to it, knocking Greymon back half a step. The fireball streaked through the air and exploded into the chest of one of The Shadows, knocking it down to the ground and leaving a smoking pile of charred flesh and reeking hair. 

The Shadows stared, their smiles faltered.

"Tentomon!"

"Biyomon!"

"Palmon!"

"Gommamon!"

The digimon began to glow, and seconds later, their evolved forms crowded the hall way. 

The Shadows, recovered from their initial shock, attacked with renewed ferocity. Claws and teeth bit through scale, feather, and flesh, bellows of pain (as well as anger) and the Shadows' screams of joy and agony filled the hall with a swelling cacophony of noise and violence. 

At one point Tai heard Sora scream. His gaze swept wildly around him, occasional flashes of light providing brief amounts of sight to the gloom. Sora screamed again, and Tai began to panic, scrambling frantically back and forth, searching for her.

"Sora! SORA!"

Suddenly, she was there. There was a long gash one her left arm, and she clutched it tightly. She was standing, weakly, against a wall roughly ten feet away from where Tai stood. A Shadow was advancing on her, murder in its eyes. 

Tai took off running, ignoring the throbbing pain in his leg from his earlier wound, wondering vaguely if the Shadow would kill him and not much giving a shit if it did. 

The Shadow was just about ready to pounce at the girl when Tai tackled it from the side, screaming and punching and kicking and clawing and just doing anything he could think of to hurt the damn thing, hurt it _bad_. The Shadow, confused and off balance, went down, and its grin contorted into a feral snarl of malicious and utmost hatred. 

For a second the Shadow simply lay there, letting the boy attack it; it was really too stupid to know quite what was going on. But it soon got the message. It drew its lips back and shoved its head forward, attempting to bite off Tai's face. Tai, half-expecting it, leaned back just in time, and punched the Shadow as hard as he could in the throat. The Shadow seemed to choke, and then coughed (a rusty, grating sound that was most similar to twisting metal). It worked one claw free from where Tai had pinned it, and took a strong, sudden swipe at the boy.

It was stopped by, of all things, a hair-clip. The one Sora had shoved into its eye.

The Shadow froze for a second, shocked, not comprehending the intense amount of pain it was feeling. Then it began to scream, a long, high pitched screech that seemed to last forever. It screamed in the most utter agony it had ever felt, the most terrible, twisting, knifing pain that it have ever even conceived. It screamed on and on and on, and as it screamed, the Shadows watched with an intense, sickening fascination, and for the first time, with fear-real, true fear. 

Tai, grabbing a rock, bashed it into the Shadow's skull, and the screaming stopped. Everything stopped. 

The hall was deathly silent. Then, one by one, The Shadows retreated. They slowly backed into the gloom, and disappeared, even the dead. For a moment all that could be seen were their eyes, glowing red and spiteful. Then they, too, were gone, leaving the children and their partners alone, and just like that, it was over. 

Tai flopped down to the stone floor beneath him, and Sora sat next to him. 

"H-hey," Tai breathed heavily, winded. "You okay?" 

Sora lifted her hand from the wound running down the length of her arm, and inspected it. It was long, but it was shallow.

"I'll live," she said. "Good thing I had that clip, though." She held it up, gave it a quick look over, and wiped the blood off on her jeans. Tai was mildly surprised to see that it was the same hair-clip he had given to her for her birthday a few years before.

'I, uh, didn't know you had kept that," he said. Sora looked at him, then quickly glanced away.

"Yeah, well…it's a nice hair-clip."

Around them the others were settling down as well, sitting or propping themselves against walls, and the digimon had returned to rookie level. For the moment, they were safe. For the moment. 

The was a short span of minutes in which neither Tai nor Sora said anything to each other, the one tilting his head back and closing his eyes, the other sitting with her legs folded beneath her, staring off into space as if in deep contemplation.

"Tai?" Sora said softly, after a time.

"Hmm?"

"You saved my life. I- thank you." Tai heard a sudden sniff, opened his eyes, and saw Sora to be staring straight ahead, her face angled slightly downwards, and it almost looked like her eyes had tears in them. 

"Sora…"

She looked at him, and Tai saw that she _did _have tears in her eyes. 

"T-Tai, I almost d-d-died, and, and, and…" The tears swelled, and began to overflow, tracing their way down the girl's cheek.

"Hey, whoa…take it easy…" Tai reached out for her, and gently pulled her into a hug. Sora wrapped her arms tightly around his neck, and sobbed into his shoulder. Tai held her close, ran a hand through her hair and along her back, just as he had a few days before, at the campfire. 

"Shhhhhh…there, there, it's okay…it's okay, we're all fine…" Sora simply pulled him in tighter, cried harder. For the most part, Tai let her be, patting her back occasionally, whispering to her softly.

"It's okay, just let it out…everything's gonna be alright…" 

She cried for a few minutes more, then Tai got an idea. It most likely wouldn't work, but he was willing to give it a shot. So, mustering up the courage he for which he was Chosen, Tai began to sing softly:

__

Go to sleep, baby 

Go to sleep;

Soon all will be well.

Sleep now child, 

Rest now child,

Soon you'll be at peace.

And 

If the thunder yells

Or

If you are unwell,

I'll be here for you.

Sleep now child,

Rest now child,

I am here for you.

It was an old song, one his mother used to sing to him and then later to Kari when they were both younger. Tai sang it slowly, softly, as his mother had done, and to his surprise, the lullaby worked. Sora's tears faded, then slowed to a few sniffles, then nearly stopped completely. She listened to him with wonder, her eyes red and bleary, her face sticky from drying tears, her nose running. Tai's voice faded, and he stopped singing abruptly.

"Um…Sorry," he said. "That's all I can remember…" 

Sora's head was still buried in his shoulder. She raised it and turned her face towards his neck, then rested it down again lightly. 

"That was beautiful." She said quietly. "Sing it again. Please?" 

She tightened her hold on him slightly, and leaned against him for support, almost sitting in his lap. Tai patted her lightly on the back, and nodded slightly.

"Alright." He said, and began to sing.

***

Matt looked up at the ceiling of the tunnel he had been walking in for almost an hour, and ran a hand though his hair. 

"Hey," he said, calling up the rough dirt passageway, "how's it coming along over there?"

"Digmon was having some trouble with this vein of bedrock, but he's through most of it, I think," Cody called back, then turned back to his partner.

Matt nodded, then ran his hand through his hair a second time and stared once more to the ceiling. 

"I still say we should've gone up to help them. There's no way all that noise wasn't a fight."

Yolei, one armed linked with Davis' (as if this were some goddamned walk in the park) sighed with exasperation. 

"C'mon, Matt, we've been over this. You know that we've gotta keep going."

Matt waved her off.

"Yeah, I know, I know…but still…Sora…"

"Dude, you gotta relax. Sora's fine." Davis this time. "For one thing, it's not like she's all by herself, or anything, and two, she's got Biyomon." 

"And three…" Yolei cut in, "…Sora's one tough cookie, when she wants to be. Besides, the way that noise died down? That sounded like bad guys running away to me." 

"Totally!" Davis said helpfully.

Matt ran his hand through his hair a third time, then shoved it deep into a pocket. 

"Tai," he said quietly, so the other's wouldn't hear, "Tai, this had better work."

***

If you asked her, Gatomon wouldn't deny that she had enjoyed killing the Shadows. She had, in fact, loved every minute of it. 

Not that she enjoyed killing the way the Shadows did- the killing didn't give her joy, far from it-but it gave her a supreme sense of…_satisfaction._ This time, they hadn't surprised her. This time, she hadn't been confused and half asleep. This time, it was _her_ claws that had done the rending of flesh, _her_ teeth that bitten out their throats, _her_ smile (grim as it might have been, was still a smile) as they twitched, lay still, and died. They had hurt her, even worse, had hurt _Kari_, and for that, Gatomon knew the Shadows had to pay. And they would pay- in spades. 

Gatomon constantly wished she had never spent the time she had with Myotismon, but acknowledged the one thing that the experience left with her: it had made her tough, given her a hard streak that so far virtually no digimon had been able to dominate it or break through. Wizardmon was the only one who had thus far managed it.

_Almost the only one,_ she added to herself mentally.

But Gatomon pushed that thought out of her mind. There was no time for it. Not now, anyway. 

The other digimon were either sitting next to their respective human partners, or (in the case of Agumon and Biyomon) stood in small groups. Gatomon was sitting off by herself, scanning the darkness and nonchalantly licking the blood off of her gauntlets. That had only been a test, she knew it. There would be more fights, bigger, tougher, but not as tough as her. The Shadows would come, and Gatomon would be ready for them. 

She gave her gauntlet another lick.

***

Tai hated to do it, but he gently shook Sora awake. She opened her eyes halfway, sat up a little, and yawned.

She had been sleeping, leaning against Tai with her head on his shoulder, for about an hour. Her arm had stopped bleeding, and Joe had been able to bandage it fairly well without having to wake her completely, and Tai, not having the heart to do it himself, let her sleep longer than he should have. 

Sora looked at him, rubbing the light amount of sleep from her eyes, and smiled at him sheepishly. 

"I got snot on your shirt." She said. 

Tai shrugged. "It'll wash out. No big deal." He stood, and held out a hand to help her up. Sora accepted it, and was soon standing herself, but she retained her grip on his hand. 

"Tai, " she said, " Thanks for…you know. Helping me out like that." Tai's eyebrows shot up as he felt her give his hand the slightest of squeezes. She seemed to debate with herself for a second, but with a "What-the-hell" kind of shrug, she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. 

"It was very sweet of you, Tai. Thanks."

There was a short lapse in Tai's brain where he couldn't quite figure out what had just happened there. 

"Uh…yeah…" He fumbled, both Sora and himself blushing faintly and not really looking at each other. "well, you're, uh, welcome. Yeah." 

They were saved by this awkward moment by Izzy, who showed up to say that he'd just gotten an e-mail from Yolei, and that the other group was roughly halfway towards its objective. 

Thus shaken from his stupor, Tai resumed his role of leadership, and they were moving again in fifteen minutes.

***

About the time T.K. had left the campsite, Kari blinked her eyes open, and stared up at the low ceiling of her cell. She didn't know what had woken her up, couldn't remember if it had been a dream or maybe just some noise caused by this world's equivalent to the rat. She favored the former, dreaded the latter, and believed neither. She sat in the darkness, breathing slowly, deeply, eyes wide open and ears perked. 

After a few moments, there was the softest of sounds, so quiet that Kari might have well imagined it. It was a voice, a familiar one, and it was speaking, murmuring to her quietly. Though it was practically inaudible, Kari understood; it was saying her name, gently, lovingly, over and over: _Kari…Kari…_

A tear, just one, ran down her cheek, smearing a small path of clean skin through the dirt that covered her face. Her own voice, hushed and low, quivering slightly, seemingly caught in her throat, squeaked noiselessly out of her mouth.

"T.K.?"

She waited for an answer, but none came. Soon, her eyelids grew heavy, her head nodded, and she was asleep. By the time she woke up, she would remember none of this; or, if she did, dismissed it as merely a dream. 

Outside her window, thunder rumbled ominously in the distance as silent lightning flashed across the sky.

***

"So. They've passed through my guards." Umbremon sat, brooding, in his dark hall, sprawled unconcernedly in his high throne. The Shadows were standing in two parallel lines, one facing the other, forming a path along the considerable length of floor stretching from Umbremon's throne to the entrance of his great hall. There were faint hisses and murmurs floating from The Shadows, but Umbremon ignored them. 

"So."

His eyes, narrow slits of red, thinned. So. 

They were obviously powerful-more powerful than he had originally thought, and the idea that he had made a mistake troubled Umbremon. It wasn't a larger error, but then again, even small mistakes can sew the seeds of disaster. A thought, one he had stolen from the boy-child whose body he had taken, bubbled up to the surface of his mind: _If you invite mistakes, they'll leave the door open for trouble._ It was some tidbit of advice from his draconic bitch of a foster-mother, no doubt. He pushed it away as one would do to a foul smelling piece of garbage and thought of it no more. The digidestined were his problem, not some dead she-dragon. 

He fingered the crest idly, watched it swing from its fine golden chain and examining it with a mild degree of half-interest. The crest itself, encased in its golden tag, was actually rather plain. It was made of glass, an unassuming grayish color, and etched upon it was a design of simple curves and lines. Truth be told, it really wasn't that interesting…and yet it wasn't boring, either. It looked…earnest. Umbremon both loved and despised it.

He had had it ever since the day he had stolen it from that brat. The day he had taken that dragon-bitch's head in his claws and snapped her neck, leaving her to die whatever slow, painful death awaited her. The day he had ripped that Guardian's throat out…Umbremon smiled. It was a pleasant memory, that one: the way the Guardian's head had just flopped back and forth on its flaps of skin, his green eyes staring wide with shock and then with nothing at all…It had been a good day. Since then he had studied the crest, learned its secrets, turned its power to his. He had had to corrupt it first, of course, and it had proved a difficult task. But once completed, Umbremon had tasted his first bit of real power, and it was sweet. He had used it to create The Shadows in his own image. 

In time, his Master had learned of the crests, the chosen children…and the girl. Her power the Master craved the most. She was different; her power was not that of the crests. 

It wasn't until the revolution that the girl was finally brought to the Dark Ocean. The revolutionaries, a small band of renegade Shadowmon borrowing the forms of scubamon, had pulled her through, and tried (and failed) to make her their queen, their leader. She had refused, and that had probably saved her life. Umbremon almost chuckled at the thought. The renegades had been crushed, of course, and were still being tortured for their crimes. The Master was an expert when it came to torture; he could keep a digimon alive for years, living in the most excruciating pain the entire time. 

But it was Umbremon, yes, Umbremon, who had discovered the _boy's_ power, he who had finally captured the girl, and he who would destroy the Master once and for all. 

Umbremon smiled at the thought, a smile that was disturbingly reminiscent of that of his Shadows, and chuckled softly to himself.

The digidestined wanted him? Fine. They'd get him.

***


	12. The Prophet

Tai, walking in the front of the line with Sora, Izzy, Joe, and Mimi stretched out behind him, came to an abrupt stop. The other children pulled in behind him, and the entire group stared.

There was a boy standing in front of them. He looked about fifteen years old, short brown hair swept casually to the right, eyes glowing dimly in the dark hallway. He grinned, sending a collective shudder throughout the entire group.

He grinned just like The Shadows. 

"So," he- _it_- said, its too-deep voice ringing clearly and malignantly in the ears of the children. "So you have come to destroy me."

Tai, being the leader, stepped forward. 

"We're here for my sister. If you give her to us now, we won't give you any trouble." 

The boy stared at him blankly for a second, then threw back his head and laughed,

"Oh! You mean the girl!" He looked back at Tai, eyes glinting dangerously and the grin still painted across his face.

"I thought you'd be coming for her, sooner or later," he chuckled softly. "But no, I think I'll be keeping her. She is…How do you put it?" He threw back his head again and laughed some more.

"Ah yes! She's what you'd call a "good lay!" With that he exploded into peals of deep, booming laughter that sounded half-insane.

"You lie!" Tai sprang forward, eyes blazing with anger and fists clenched tightly. He took three steps and lunged at the boy…

…and passed right through him as if he was nothing more than air. Tai landed with a crash on the hard stone floor and the rest of the digidestined-plus digimon-rushed over to him.

"Tai!" Joe said. "Don't listen to that freak!"

"Yeah!" Sora agreed. "That bastard's just fucking with you, that's all." 

Tai waved them off and stood up, rubbing where his elbows had scraped against stone.

"Yeah, I know," he said. Anger flashed in his eyes and he stepped out in front again, facing the…well, facing _it_. "That doesn't mean I have to take it."

Meanwhile, the boy was off to one side (now that they were looking, the children could see that he was actually floating several inches off the floor), smirking as he watched. Once Tai was in front of him, he spoke:

"So, human. Do you wish to face me?"

Tai smiled grimly.

"You bet your ass, fuck face. And when I'm done, I'm gonna be moppin' the floor with that grin."

For the third time, the thing in front of them laughed its spiteful little laugh, and applauded.

"Well said, well said! You know where to find me boy, so take your time, take your time! I'll be waiting!" And with that, he was gone. 

"Fuck!" Tai spat the word out, kicking a small pile of dirt angrily. The children and their partners stood silently for a time, until Tai began to move forward, still muttering to himself.

"Fuck!"

***

"Kari…Kari!" 

She opened her eyes, looked around, and found out she wasn't dreaming. She was still here, in her grimy little cell.

"Kari, are you awake?" 

Kari blinked the sleep out of her eyes, and turned to the Hole.

"Yeah, Josh, I'm here. What is it?"

There was a bright flash of lightning, and thunder exploded. Outside her window, Kari could hear the sound of rain falling, lightly at first, then coming down in torrents. 

Josh answered meekly from his side of The Hole. 

"I- I'm kinda scared…"

"The lightning?"

"Yeah." 

Kari reached through The Hole and clasped the boy's hand with her own, giving it a reassuring squeeze. 

"It's okay. It can't get you in here." She peeked through the small opening, and saw Josh's eye looking back at her. It looked troubled, the blue of its pupil large and worried.

" I know." He said, haltingly. "But there's something…different."

"What do you mean?" asked Kari.

"What I mean is that…I…well…I don't know what I mean. But something just _feels_ different. Can't you feel it too?"

Now that he had mentioned, she did. Josh was right-there_ was_ something different in the air. There was some force, some energy, something 

(_electric_)

that the storm carried with it, some sense of…change. Some sense that, one way or the other, Kari's imprisonment would end tonight.

The only question was whether or not she would live to enjoy it.

***

The rain came down, and when it did, it came down _hard._ Tiny bullets of water, sometimes hail, flew down from the clouds in sheets and torrents, and soaked T.K. instantly. He ignored it. He was shivering- the rain was freezing cold-and his legs were so weak they might have been made out of wet rubber, but he ignored that too. Whenever he fell (and fall he did-quite frequently, in fact), he simply dug his hands into the wet, crumbling earth, and pushed himself up with a grunt. Patamon helped when he could, ready to digivolve at a moment's notice, but T.K. waved him off whenever he mentioned it. Soon, the combination of wind, rain, and thunder made it impossible for his tiny voice to be heard at all. 

So T.K. walked, feet sloshing through mud and dead leaves, hair dripping into his eyes and arms hanging limply at his side. Somewhere in the back of his mind, T.K. knew he was sick-really sick-but when it came down to it, he really didn't care. The aspirinl he had taken was helping the fever, a little, but if he stayed out in the rain any longer it wouldn't be doing any good at all, and he would most likely die of pneumonia. 

T.K. kept walking. He wouldn't die, not out here, not yet. Kari needed him; he would not fail her again. Never again, he promised himself, never again would he fail her. He would live; yes. He would live, and when he made it to the castle, when Kari was safe, then it would be okay to die. 

Brushing a skeletal, dead branch away from his face, T.K. walked on, disappeared into the heavy rain, and made his way towards the castle.

***

Suddenly, there were the doors. They were tall, well over fifty feet high, and each was wider than Tai was tall. The doors faced each other, each one half of an ellipse that ended in an abruptly straight edge at ground level. Engraved upon them were carvings similar to the arch above the entrance gates, more scenes of violent death and destruction in a never-ending flood of homicidal ecstasy. Tai was too angry to feel sick, but it was a close thing.

"They ready?" he asked over his shoulder.

Izzy looked up from his laptop,

"Yeah," he said. "Matt says they're ready when you are."

"They know the signal?"

"Affirmative."

"Cool."

Tai took on last look at his team, then turned back to the door.

"Alright," he said. "Let's do this."

He pushed open the door.

***

It swung open easily, silently, not nearly as heavy as it looked. The room they entered was darker than the hall (a few moments earlier, Tai would not have thought such a thing to be possible), and seemed impossibly huge. Neither walls nor ceiling was in sight, though he could feel their presence. On all sides was blackness, deep and undeniable. They walked forward, their digimon partners leading the way, wary of any sudden attack.. 

"Agumon?"

"Gotcha'." The dinosaur began to digvolve, and around him, the others did the same. Soon, Greymon, Kabuteriemon, Togemon, Birdramon, and Ikkokumon stood (or in some cases, hovered) above the children. They walked cautiously forward.

For a while, nothing happened. Then the eyes began to appear. Thin, hateful spears of red light leered out of the darkness, followed by malicious, evil smiles, insane smiles, smiles that promised nothing but pain. 

And then _He_ appeared. The boy, the digimon, whatever he was, was sitting on a high throne seemingly carved out of the living obsidian that formed the walls of his stronghold. 

At first they could only make him out dimly, but when he looked up, everything blazed into dazzling clarity. The Digidestined, half blinded for about a second, found that they were surrounded on all sides by Shadows, standing four or five bodies deep, all of them hissing or spitting or promising wicked things with their smiles. 

"Welcome."

The children turned in the direction of the boy's voice, startled by its deep, raspy quality, and their eyes widened. The boy was changing.

"I do so hope you enjoy your stay, " It was saying almost pleasantly, as its skin darkened from its pale white color to a dusky hue of black, as its eyes beginning to blare with a glowing red light. 

"Because I dare say, you'll be here for quite some time." It was grinning, that same homicidal grin as its Shadows, and the teeth were elongating, filing themselves into vicious points. Horns protruded from its forehead, and its body grew, thickened with muscle. 

"In fact, I don't think you'll ever be leaving." Two large, leathery wings sprang from its back, and its transformation was complete. What stood before the children no longer held even the faintest trace of humanity; it had become a monstrous, twisted, evil _thing_. It was the boogey-man, the monster under the bed, the star of every child's nightmare.

"Where's my sister you son of a bitch?"

Umbremon's smile widened; it took up nearly half his face now. He gestured with one massive, clawed hand, and a spotlight appeared a few feet to the left of him, brightly illuminating a large metal cage.

Kari huddled inside of it. She looked up, saw Tai, and began topull uselessly at the bars.

"TAI!"

"Kari!" Tai yelled, and tried to run forward. Sora's hand on his shoulder stopped him.

"Dying isn't going to help her, Taichi." The boy glared at her, his normally soft brown eyes angry. Then he looked back to his sister. Between him and her, dozens of shadows pressed together, smiling.

Tai bowed his head. 

"Greymon…" he said softly. The dinosaur took a half-step forward, bending his head low.

"Fry these mother fuckers."

With that, Greymon let loose a concussive burst of heat and light, and at least half a dozen of the Shadows were incinerated instantly. Behind him, Togemon fired volley after volley of needles, each one over five feet long and deadly sharp. The needles flew the air, spearing Shadows, impaling them and pining them to the floor. Birdramon spread her wings and a shower of burning rocks rained upon the twisted, screaming creatures, crushing and burning at once. Ikkokumon fired missiles into clusters, speared those that were alone, and Kabuteriemon was busy electrocuting as many Shadows as he could, their bodies twitching and convulsing as their insides burned. Below, Gatomon leapt nimbly from Shadow to Shadow, claws ripping out throats, eyes, anything she could get. 

But it wasn't enough. There were hundreds of Shadows screaming, laughing, clawing, and biting their way towards the children. The stink of spilled blood filled the stale air, and bellows of rage and pain rang through the hall. 

"Izzy!" Tai yelled, struggling to be heard. "Send it! Send it!"

Not wasting anytime, Izzy whipped out his laptop and pushed the ENTER key.

***

Yolei sat, watching her computer screen anxiously. Behind her, Davis was pacing, with Veemon on his heels, every now and then exchanging words with Ken. Matt stared expectantly at the ceiling, and Cody stood off to one side. 

The girl blinked, and all of a sudden, a tiny mechanical voice sang "You've got mail." She opened the file quickly, the others crowded around her. The e-mail opened, and they read the one word it contained.

"Now."

***

Things were bad. The digimon were putting up a good fight- Shadows were dying by the dozen, screeching and grinning their way to their deaths, but it wasn't enough. There were simply too many of them; the children were being swamped. 

A Shadow, seeming to come out of nowhere, lunged at Tai. The boy side stepped it lightly, and felt his heart come to a standstill as the Shadow's claws whistled by a scant three inches away from his face. Tai stumbled a step backwards, tripped, and fell. The Shadow loomed over him like a bad dream, ready to strike, but was crushed and instant later by Greymon's large orange foot. 

"Sorry I let one by, Tai!"

"No problem big guy! Just keep it up!"

Across the room, Ikokkumon bellowed as a Shadow bit its way through his thick fur. A moment later, the Shadow was speared. 

"Tai!" Sora yelled from her perch atop Biyomon. "We can't keep this up!" 

Tai was about to respond when the ground began to shake, then to rumble. There was a sudden upsurge of dirt and stone, and before the dust settled, Garurumon leapt into the fray, biting and clawing wildly. 

"BLUE BLASTER!" A beam of liquid fire, startlingly blue and freezing cold, leapt from his mouth and struck the nearest Shadow. It was blown back nearly thirty feet, and when it landed, was encased in a crystalline tomb of ice. From behind Garurumon came Flamedramon, followed closely by Digmon, Stingmon, and Halsemon. 

"FIRE ROCKET!"

"GOLD RUSH!"

"TEMPEST WING!"

"SPIKING STRIKE!"

The attacks surged through the air, slamming into The Shadows, burning their flesh, crushing their bones. The Shadows screamed with rage and pain, a great wail rising up to the invisible roof far above, and were silenced. But still they came. 

Meanwhile, Tai was fighting his way towards the cage; Umbremon was nowhere in sight. Clutching the bars, Tai whispered:

"Kari? Kari, are you alright?" 

The girl looked up, and grinned.

She suddenly shot her hand out through the bars, clutching Tai by the shirt, and pulled him forward with unnatural strength. Tai, shocked, grimaced in pain as his face slammed against the bars and blood gushed from his nose.

"I'm just fine, brother dear."

Kari's grin was wide, gaping, grotesque. Her eyes, usually a soft brown color, were blood red. Her nails grew into sharp claws, and suddenly Tai knew he was facing a Shadow. 

Its breath was fetid, the smell of death heavy. Its teeth were rotted and yellow, but as sharp and deadly as a set of rusty knives, and the fact that it wore the face of his sister made it seem all the worse. Its claws pressed painfully against his throat, and Tai found he couldn't breath. 

The Shadow was laughing, twisting Kari's face into a vile parody of the real thing, looking both exactly like her and yet completely different at the same time. Tai battered weakly against it with his fists, but it was useless. It was too strong. 

"Diiiieee…." The Kari-thing hissed between its clenched, grinning teeth. 

"Diiiiieeeeee…."

Suddenly, its face went slack, its eyes dull and glossy, its grin faded. 

Gatomon's claws exploded out of the Shadow-Kari's throat, bloodstained and dripping with gore. It relaxed its grip on Tai's throat, and fell over, dead. Gatomon stood behind it. A few of the bars, bent wildly out of shape, told how she had gotten inside the cage. 

"Are you alright?"

Tai, unable to speak, nodded, and croaked out a thank you. Gatomon nodded, climbed nimbly out through the hole she had created, and leapt on to Tai's shoulder.

"Let's go, let's go!" She cried, and they went. 

***

T.K. walked slowly up to the castle doors, eyes staring blankly ahead, Patamon hanging onto T.K.'s head for dear life. The wind had grown too strong for his little wings, and the rain was still coming down hard.

Two Shadows appeared out of the darkness, blocking their path and grinning like hyenas. 

T.K. grinned too.

He took another step forward, then another. The Shadows, sensing his weakness, moved in, each one already planning what to do with the meat.

T.K. stopped, and the shadows stepped forward. Once. Twice.

On the third step, the Shadows stopped. Their grins were gone. T.K. was standing in front of them, not even paying attention to them, and his crest was glowing brightly, an intense, piercing golden light. The Shadows, mostly due to their dim intelligence and malicious nature, were unafraid and frankly unimpressed. Each one sped up its pace, running now, and leapt at the boy, claws out-stretched. Patamon cried out in alarm, covering his eyes with his tiny arms. T.K. didn't budge, not one inch. He didn't even blink. 

As the Shadows bore down upon the pair, the light exploded outwards, creating a blinding flash of white light that filled Patamon's vision, forcing him to close his eyes. Even then, he could feel the heat radiating from it. 

When he opened his eyes again, the light was gone. So were The Shadows. In their place was now nothing more than two small piles of ashes, which were soon blown away, scattered by the wind. 

T.K., seemingly oblivious to what had just happened, entered the castle. Above, lightning flashed and-

***

-thunder boomed across the dark sky out side Kari's window, but she wasn't paying attention to it. Something was happening. 

She didn't know what it could be –she could hear none of the battle raging below from her position in the tower- but some part of her acknowledged that something in the air was different. 

"He's coming." 

She snapped her head around to where Josh's voice had floated over from the hole.

"What?" She looked through the small opening. Josh's eyes stared back at her.

"He's coming."

"Who?"

"The dark man. He's coming, but so is the other." Kari shook her head in confusion.

"Josh, I don't under-"

"The demon, Kari. The one who put us here. Him and the _other_."

Kari's eyes narrowed, and she put her hand through the hole, squeezing Josh's tightly.

"Josh…Who is the other? Who?" 

The boy's eye had a far-away, almost serene look. 

"The Avatar. The Champion." The eye focused on her, staring straight into her eyes.

"You know him." Kari's throat seized up, and her heart seemed to stop beating.

"T.K." she breathed. She refocused her attention to the boy.

"How do you know?"

"The dreams," he said. "The dreams tell me things…sometimes. Sometimes, they warn me of danger, sometimes they show what will be or what may be…" Josh's eye had changed color, from its pretty blue color to an unearthly shade of pale gray. Kari shuddered at the expression she saw in that eye. It was an expression of great age and wisdom, one far greater than any mankind had ever seen since the divine walked the earth. Kari shuddered again.

"When will the dark man come?"

The eye, startlingly pale and old, looked at her with something akin to pity. 

"Soon," said Joshua. "Soon."

***

"LIGHTNING CLAW!" Gatomon's claws tore through The Shadow's throat, arteries gushing blood and tendons falling limply to the wayside. She turned around, and slashed another Shadow viciously across the face, sending it stumbling blindly into the line of fire as it clutched its face in pain.

"NOVA BLAST!" There was a rush of burning white light, a stream of liquid fire, and The Shadow was gone, taking roughly half a dozen more with it. Gatomon didn't bother paying attention-she had already moved on to the next opponent, then the next, and the next. Her mind was a bubbling, churning pot of rage ready to boil over, her eyes clouded by the red fog of bloodlust. Nothing mattered except the death of her enemies, nothing but their blood spilled, their life extinguished. She clawed, she bit, she kicked and punched and scratched and tore…Nothing else mattered but the kill.

With the grace and fluidity born to her, Gatomon dodged the swipe of another Shadow who had managed to creep up behind her, turned, and smoothly lopped its head off with one easy motion. It landed on the hard stone floor with a soft _squelch_, rolled a few inches, and stopped, eyes staring and blood pooling. The body landed next to it a few seconds later, this time with a heavy _thud_. Gatomon leapt over it, and took the luxury of looking around. 

Dead Shadows were littered everywhere, piles and piles of them. The Digidestined and the other digimon were fighting hard, and bravely…but it wasn't going to be enough. Shadows seemed to be pouring out of nowhere, a stream of black, twisted bodies with no apparent source. 

If things kept going as they were, Gatomon knew they would lose.

And she didn't care. Because only one thing mattered, only one goal drove her on: the killing of these monsters who had hurt Kari. Gatomon doubted that the girl was even still alive, and the thought only fueled her anger, her need for revenge, and because of that need, Shadows died, and in Gatomon's mind…

They died again, and again, and again. 

***

There was a loud noise outside of Kari's cell, shouts, and the sound of running. She pressed an ear against the cold metal of the door, and listened.

Nothing.

"Kari."

The girl turned around, walked the one ore two steps required to reach the wall, and knelt down.

"What?"

"Here." Josh shoved his hand, balled up into a little fist, through the Hole, found Kari's own hand, and dumped something into it. Something cool and smooth, metal and glass.

Her Crest.

Josh's eye was looking at her grimly, still bearing that strange gray hue.

"You'll need this, when _he_ comes. It will protect you, for a time."

Kari stared at the crest, nodded in dumb belief, never doubting a word the boy said.

"How long?" she whispered.

"God willing…" Josh said quietly. "…It will last long enough."

"And if there's no God?" Kari asked the question in a small, quiet voice; it was meek, afraid. Doubtful. In her eyes was the question asked by all those to whom disaster had struck, those that had nothing to look forward to but death and misery, those who had lost all hope. She stared at the Crest, a thing nothing more than a tiny shard of pink crystal, and wept bitterly.

When Joshua (as the girl had come to think of him when his eyes were that age-old shade of slate) answered, it was in a firm, confident voice.

"There is a God, Hikari Kamiya, and He watches over you even now." 

Kari looked up, surprised, tears forgotten. She had never told him her full name.

"What? How do you-"

"Does it matter?" Joshua interrupted. "What matters is that you do not give up hope, for all is not lost. The Avatar comes; he has been chosen, and you will be saved if it is at all possible."

"You mean T.K." Kari said, voice low and filled with awe. "You're talking about T.K.!"

Joshua merely closed his eye halfway, and nodded his assent. 

"He will come. But you must be brave, as so too will I, when the time comes and the dark man comes for me. You must endear!" Kari nodded, and noted with some comfort that Joshua's eye was slowly regaining its former shade of blue. Joshua blinked a second later, and, instantly, he was Josh again. 

Outside, the thunder roared.

***

Tai didn't know how long they had been fighting against the Shadows. Sometimes he felt as if they had been going one for hours and hours, but then he'd glance at his wristwatch, and would discover that in reality only a few minutes had passed. As it was, he and the others were getting tired, and the fight wasn't even close to being over. 

Not that they weren't doing well-quite the contrary. Every attack that the digimon produced took out at least a half a dozen Shadows. Rather, the problem was that there were _just too many_. Tai didn't know how many-he had never counted to begin with-but it was way more than there should have been. There was absolutely no way that there had been that many Shadows in the hall when the digidestined had first entered. There couldn't have even been a fraction of the bodies that now littered the floor, and yet the children and their partners were still swamped by these dark, grinning monsters.

Suddenly, the doors to the throne room were flung wide open, and everyone-digidestined, digimon, and Shadows- were temporarily blinded by a flash of brilliant, dazzlingly white light streaked with gold. The Shadows cried out in unison and fell to their knees, mouths gaping in one last, long, silent scream before the light blazed like fire in the eyes of the children and swept the Shadows away, their grins gone once and forevermore. 

It took a few seconds for the children to collect themselves. Each one was tired, scratched and bruised in several places, and bleeding. The gash on Sora's arm, as well as the one Tai sported on his leg, had opened up again, and dark blood had seeped through bandages and clothes alike. 

One by one, the children stood, looking towards the door. Their digimon, now exhausted, all devolved back to their rookie forms. All, that is, except Gatomon, who alone held on to her champion form. 

There was still a bright stream of light pouring out from the door, but it was slightly fainter than before. Silhouetted against it were two forms, stark black against the brightness of the light behind them. The light faded, slowly, and the two figures came into focus. The digidestined's mouths dropped open, and they stared. 

T.K. stood before them, looking all the world like some holy warrior on a righteous crusade, eyes blazing but with no trace of fever. Behind him, Angemon towered over the boy, his six gloriously white wings spread wide.

There was a short span of silence, before T.K., his voice low and oddly commanding, spoke. 

"I hope we haven't missed anything important." 

***

Rain pounded against the outside of her cell, lightning flashed wildly, thunder boomed in a swelling cacophony of noise, and Kari was afraid. It was completely dark, both inside and out of her cell, save for the occasional stabs of light the storm had provided, illuminating her briefly in a ghostly, blue-white light. 

She sat huddled against one wall of her cell, that which was directly opposite the door and which supported the window. Her eyes were wide with fright, cold sweat dripped off her brow and into her eyes. She was staring at the door, curled up into as small a ball as she could make herself, trembling madly. Rain slammed against the stone wall, dripping through the bars, and ran down onto Kari's back. It was freezing cold, but she didn't care- all of her attention was focused on that thick metallic rectangle before her. In one hand she clutched her crest tightly, so much so that the crest pressed itself painfully into her palm and her knuckles turned white. 

She swallowed hard, bile rising fast in her throat, and for a moment she felt as if she'd throw up. She nearly did, but was able to stop herself after a few seconds. 

The thunder outside her cell was deafening, but a new sound had begun to float over it to her ears: sound of battle. Every now and then, she'd hear a distant roar, and would feel the stone beneath her vibrate slightly, and she knew that the others had come for her. The thought, however, brought little comfort. She knew that _He_ would be here soon-sooner than her friends could reach her. 

_I will not scream,_ she resolved. _When _He_ comes for me, I will not show him how afraid I am. I will not I will not I will not.I-_

The door burst open suddenly, Umbremon's ominous, shadowy form filling its relatively puny frame, his eyes glowing with a blaring, hateful red as he took first one step into Kari's cell, and then another. Soon he was towering over her huddled frame, seeming ten, no, twenty feet tall, his leathery black wings spread out behind him and his claws glinting in the brief flashes of lightning. He looked down at her, as she stared back up at him in stark, mind-numbing fear. He grinned, that same vicious Shadow grin he had used as he mentally raped her, and Kari, resolve forgotten, began to scream. 

***


	13. One Red Rose

The digidestined, T.K. in front, ran, flew, and galloped up the long winding stairs that led to Umbremon's tower, their digimon grunting and breathing hard as they carried the children. They were roughly halfway up the stairs when a scream, long and bloodcurdling, pierced the near silent darkness around them. They all stopped dead, T.K. standing stiffly with eyes wide.

Kari.

Without a thought, he took off running, taking the stairs two, three, sometimes as many as four at a time, Angemon and the rest of the group close at his heels. Finally, they burst out of the stairwell and into an impossibly long hallway, each wall lined with slotted steel doors. They stood for a moment, wondering, when Ken spoke.

"It's a prison." And, looking at it, they knew it. No one asked Ken how he knew.

"How are we gonna find Kari in all this shit?" Matt asked, punching the wall in frustration as he faced the seemingly endless line of cells. 

"KARI!" It was T.K., his voice ringing out clearly and surprisingly loud. He knocked on doors, opened the thin horizontal slot in each one, and peeked inside. 

"KARI! WHERE ARE YOU!?" Tai this time, following T.K.'s lead. The rest of the digidestined and digimon did the same.

"KARI!"

"KAAARRIIII!!"

"WHERE ARE YOU?!"

There was a sudden clanging noise, then one that sounded like moving chains, and then a knocking on one of the doors. The children ran over to it, excited and hopeful all at once.

"Kari? Kari!" Tai yelled, fumbling to open the slot. But Kari's soft brown eyes weren't the ones that met him. Rather, they were younger, a boy's, and slate gray.

"Umbremon has taken her to the roof of the castle." The voice was undeniably that of a child, a little boy, but something about it…something in it spoke of wisdom, of age. It gave Tai the creeps.

"Who are you?" Tai asked, looking for someway to open the door. Creepy or not, no kid deserved to be locked up in a cage.

The eyes blinked, and all of a sudden they were a bright blue color.

"It doesn't matter right now. Forget the door and go get Kari!" Tai was slightly surprised (and relieved) to find that that odd, age-old quality in the kid's voice had disappeared along with his gray eyes. He stared a him for a few seconds, and the boy stared right back. 

"Alright, kid. But we'll be back, I promise!" 

"Just hurry! You don't have much time!" 

Tai nodded, and took off, the rest of the team following him. Except T.K.

Not sure why, T.K. lagged behind, and the others, intent on reaching Kari, didn't notice. He walked over to the cell door, where the boy (his eyes gray once more) stood waiting. 

"Here," he said, and thrust a small, dirty fist out through the slot, and dumped something into T.K.'s hand. It was small, and smooth, and felt like glass. T.K. looked at it.

It was a crest.

"This will aid you." T.K. looked up from his hand, and into Joshua's eyes. 

"It is mine, given to me by Ryuamon a very long time ago. Umbremon stole the original, perverted it to his cause, and eventually destroyed its essence. This," he said, pointing to it, "came from within me. It was I who crafted my original crest, unknown or not, and it was I who crafted this one."

"How?"

"By believing in what it stands for, for living its way. My heart made it, as your heart made your crest, Hope-Bearer."

T.K. stared again at the crystal, his eyes tracing the patterns etched into it light blue-gray surface, not wondering or caring how the boy knew his crest. 

"What does it stand for?"

Joshua closed T.K's fist around the crest, and stared steadily into the older boy's eyes. 

"It is the crest of Humility- to have pride, yet not be Proud; to bend when necessary but never break; it is to be humble, but to be strong, and to see the truth of things that would otherwise cloud the judgement of others. It will help you in the coming battle."

T.K. nodded, turned, and began to walk away, slowly at first, then with increasing speed. Soon he was running full tilt, and as he ran, he heard Joshua's voice calling to him.

"And remember! Truth is merely a matter of Perception!" His voice was fading, but even at this distance T.K. could hear it reverting to Josh's.

"To know truth is to see with clear eyes…"

Soon, T.K. could hear nothing save for his own breathing and the sound of his sneakers as they pounded against the stone floor beneath him. Angemon, who had noticed T.K.'s absence, was hovering in place further down the hallway, waiting. 

T.K. clutched the boy's crest tightly in his palm, his own glowing faintly beneath his shirt, and he knew that, one way or the other, the end was near.

***

__

"She's lost in coma, where it's beautiful;

Intoxicated from the deep sleep.

Do you wonder what it's like, living in 

a permanent imagination

Sleeping to escape reality but you like it like that.

Guilty by design, she's nothing more than fiction;

She dreams in digital,

'cause it's better than nothing.

Now that control is gone,

It seems unreal 

She's dreaming in digital

'cause it's better than nothing.

Now that control is gone,

It seems unreal, she's dreaming in digital

She dreams in digital."

-Orgy, "Fiction (Dreams in Digital)"

***

Umbremon dragged Kari easily enough up the several flights of stairs to the uppermost reaches of his castle, and then finally onto the rain-slicked roof of the tower. Up here they were surrounded on all sides by dark ramparts that faded into midnight obscurity, except when lightning burst forth from the clouds and through the sky above, rendering them in stark relief against the temporary flash of daylight. The wind was howling all around the digimon and his captive, blowing in strong gusts that threatened to blow the two of them right off the edge and down to their deaths on the rocky ground far, far below. 

Umbremon was worried, but not panicked, not yet. The children had proven stronger than he had thought, but the boy was the one who had ultimately saved them. If not for _him_, the Digidestined would all be dead by now. But no matter; Umbremon could still kill them all. After all, _he_ controlled the power of that boy's crest, and would soon have the girl's. Even without those, he could kill them all, he knew. He had been inside their heads, had seen their thoughts, and he knew what it was they feared when the lights went out and the wind whispered malevolently through the tree branches and clouds passed over the moon…Oh yes, he knew. 

He spared half a moment to look at his prisoner, she being unconscious by this time because of Umbremon's rough treatment and fear, and also soaked to the skin from the rain, which was still falling in sheets. 

Something in the girl's dirty, beaten face caught Umbremon's eye, and he found himself staring at her. For some unfathomable reason, something (perhaps some portion of the crest he had devoured, perhaps some faint glimmering of an Umbremon not soiled through years of pain and hate and fear) welled up within his mind, cried out, begging him not to do this thing which he planned. For a brief portion of a second, Umbremon wrestled with himself, knowing on some level or another that it wasn't too late, that he could stop, here, now, return the girl. He had there in front of him a second chance, could yet be redeemed, could-

But then it was gone. Whatever had tried to deter him from his plan had fought, and had been crushed, and now Umbremon knew that he would go through with it, that he _must_ go through with it. It was destiny, fate, that he should do this, that he should kill this girl and take her power, her light, her _essence_; take it and twist it, soil it, pervert it beyond any and all recognition, and make it his, always and forever his. He would take the power, he would kill the Master, and he would cloak not only this but _all_ worlds with deep, impenetrable shadow.

All this Umbremon saw in the girl's face, all this and a host of other dark things that even he could not comprehend, and upon seeing them, Umbremon threw the girl to the ground, tossing his head back and loosing a feral laugh out unto the dark skies above. A laugh unlike any other has ever been heard by man or beast, or even digimon. It was filled to the brim with the monster's fury, his disregard for all things living, and held not a drop of sanity left in it. As it rose to the shadowy heights of the clouds above, the laugh turned almost into a scream, long and loud and shrill. The lightning split the air and the thunder followed close behind, an explosion of light and heat and sound all converging to the point where the sky seemed it must surely shatter into a thousand pieces and fall to the ground like sharp, jagged rain.

As Umbremon screamed his fury to the wind and rain, he seemed to become enveloped in what almost looked like one of the clouds from above. It was a black mist swirling and coalescing and finally obscuring him from view before it exploded outward an instant later, not in a flash of light, but rather its complete opposite. All light in the vicinity seemed to be absorbed, sucked into a void of nothingness and then flung back unto the world as a wave of pure, utter darkness, and in Umbremon's place stood a creature to match it. There was no describing such a creature; it _couldn't_ be described, not in any physical form. It was in fact less a creature than a presence- a malicious being hell bent on the utter decimation of all things good, nothing more than a dark cloud and red eyes glowing with utter hatred. It was evil, personified. It was everything that had ever scared anybody. It was the boogey-man, the monster in the closet, and under the bed. It was what hid in the deep shadows and beckoned you forth with one long, crooked finger; the nimbus of cold, dead air that left you shivering on a hot day. It was the little voice in your head that whispered doubts, fears and prejudices into your mind, and delighted in the pain of others. It was Sin, it was Hate, it was Fear. 

As It picked up the unconscious girl, two long, needle-sharp fangs protruded from Its gaping maw (for It had no shape; It took whichever one suited It best, and It had many). Only one thing in It remained from Umbremon, and that was the grin, grown even more horrible by what now wore it, and (though frightening before) was now downright terrifying.

It smiled Its large, toothy grin…and leaned down to feed.

***

"Greymon warp digivolve to…WAR GREYMON!"

"Garurumon warp digivolve to…METAL GARURUMON!"

"Togemon digivolve to…LILYMON!"

"MEGAKABUTERIMON!"  
"GARUDAMON!"  
"ZUDAMON!"  
"IMPERIALDRAMON!"

"ANKYLOMON!"  
"ARQUILLAMON!"

The digimon exploded out onto the massive rooftop of the palace, each one temporarily enveloped in its own bright nimbus of yellow light as it screamed out its evolved form, the digidestined following close behind.

In front of the group was what had been Umbremon, Kari hanging limply from Its grasp, and the waves of terrible emotion that assaulted them was enough to stop the chosen children dead in their tracks. 

But only briefly.

A half-second later, Tai's voice, accompanied by Davis', rose over the howling wind and rain.

"GET HIM!"

The digimon charged as one, firing a barrage of attacks and screaming out battle cries as they bounded across the roof.

Dropping the girl, It flew into the air, weaving in between each attack with such deadly speed and grace that it almost looked rehearsed. Fireballs screamed by It, bolts of electricity frying the air around It, explosions tracing the path of where It had been. 

"DESPERADO BLASTER!" 

A long trail of bullets poured out from Imperialdramon's twin guns, but no matter his aim, they never seemed to hit, only whizzed through empty air. 

It was fast.

Banking sharply, It halted Its path through the sky and turned instead at the first available target: Garudamon. 

Before anyone could tell what was happening, It streaked by the giant bird-like digimon, and three deep, long, bloody gashes appeared across her chest. Screaming in agony, she fell from the sky and hit the roof with a jarring force. 

"Garudamon! NO!" Sora screamed, running towards her partner with tears streaming down her face. Tai grabbed her, pulling her to an abrupt stop.

"Tai! What're you doing? Let me go! Let me go!" Sora cried, almost screaming in hysterics, struggling desperately to escape the boy's grip. 

Rather than listen, Tai tightened his hold on the girl.

"Sora," he yelled, his voice struggling to be heard over the battle and the storm, "You can't do anything for her! He'll just kill you!"

"_But she's dying!_" Sora elbowed him in the ribs, shoving him away from her in the same motion and taking off towards her partner.

Tai recovered as quickly as he could, using his momentum to roll backwards and onto he feet, then took off after her, running as fast as he could until he tackled her from behind, pinning the girl to the ground. Sora struggled against him, screaming.

"GET OFF ME, GET OFF ME, LEMME GO! LET ME GO!"

"I'm sorry, Sora," Tai said softly. Then he punched her as hard as he could. She went limp, unconscious. 

Tai bent down, intending to pick the girl up, but couldn't seem to manage it. Hooking his arms under hers, he began to drag her back towards the rest of the group, struggling for every ounce of speed. Suddenly, Sora's feet lifted off the ground, and there was Matt, holding them up. Tai, careful to avoid looking at Matt's face, didn't say anything; he felt somehow dirty. 

By some miracle, they made it to the others without incident, but the battle was far from over. The digimon weren't doing well-several of them were cut deeply, like Garudamon was, and bleeding badly.

"God damn it! How the fuck are we supposed to beat that asshole if we can't even touch him?!" Davis punctuated his statement by slamming his fist against the nearest and only wall. 

"Fuck!" he said, then again for good measure. 

Suddenly there was a bright flash of light, but it wasn't lightning. The digidestined looked up and there, silhouetted against the sky, was It.   
It was smiling broadly.

"Oh shit…" someone muttered.

That's when the attack hit them.

***

When T.K. reached the end of the stairs, the light outside flared up to burning intensity, forcing him to squeeze his eyes shut and throw his hands up in front of him as a shield. And then it was over.

Just as suddenly as it had begun, whatever-it-was ended, leaving the air hazy and almost as if a thick layer of fog had settled in. T.K. turned to Patamon with a question, but it died on his lips. Patamon was gone. T.K. turned all around, eyes searching frantically, calling out to his partner.

"Patamon? Patamon! Where are you!?" But it was no use. The digimon simply wasn't there. 

Confused and worried, T.K. took a tentative step outside, onto the roof expecting to see a battle, or a…

Wait. 

T.K. stopped dead in his tracks, cold sweat popping out onto his forehead. 

It was completely silent. There wasn't a single sound coming from outside- not even a heartbeat. 

Forgoing all caution and afraid that all his friends were dead, T.K. ran out the stone door way, onto the roof…

…and into an abyss of darkness. There was absolutely nothing to see, not for ever and ever, but only pitch blackness all around him. But the oddest thing was that he could see himself perfectly clearly-he even seemed to glow a little. But the range of that glow stopped at his skin, and penetrated not even an inch into the darkness. 

He walked forward, his footsteps echoing hollowly off into infinity, placing Joshua's crest into his pocket. Soon, he noticed another sound merging with his footsteps. It was soft, low, too low for him to understand it. He walked on, a feeling of anxiousness rising in his chest. He didn't even know why he was walking anyway. Its not like there was anywhere to go, after all. 

"Teeeee kaaaaaay…" 

T.K. stopped dead. 

"Teeeeeeee kaaaaaaaay..."

The voice was still soft, murmuring slowly in low tones, echoing all around him so that he had no chance of knowing which direction it came from. It chilled the boy straight down to the marrow. 

"Teeeee kaaaay…why don't you talk to me, T.K.?" T.K. swallowed hard, trying to suppress the feeling of dread that was quickly rising in him. Fumbling under his shirt, he grabbed his crest and yanked it off, holding it tightly in one hand. 

"That won't help you here, T.K." The voice said, and T.K. almost dropped to his knees when he realized the voice sounded familiar. 

"Come, T.K…." the voice said, almost seeming to whisper in his ear, "come stay with me…"

Two icy hands gripped him by the shoulders, death-cold and strong.

T.K. whirled around in fright, screaming in panic at the touch and almost falling backwards. When he regained his balance, he gasped in shock.

Kari was standing in front of him, hands clasped in front of her, eyes half closed, and face devoid of any expression whatsoever. She was dressed in black, a dark silk kimono that looked roughly three centuries out of date. Her hair was unclipped, and her bangs hung freely over her face. 

"Come to me…come…" the voice, while unchanged, seemed to become all the more terrifying now that it was identified as hers. Her eyes, dark and somehow sensual, peered at him through lids half closed.

"…come…"

T.K. had taken two steps before he knew what he was doing, and even then there didn't seem to be anything he could do about it. Something about the way Kari was looking at him, the way she spoke…it drew him towards her, broke down resistances. It spoke of…promises. 

Kari reached out with one icy hand, grabbing T.K.'s. The boy flinched at the touch, and for a second he thought he saw something horrible flicker across the girl's face. But it was gone in an instant, and the girl brought his hand under the thin layer of cloth, pressing it against the soft flesh beneath. It was surprisingly warm, hot even, and the feel of the breast against his palm, exciting. The girl arched her back towards him, the top folds of the kimono falling away completely and revealing her small, pale breasts. She wrapped an icy hand around the boys neck, pulling his face closer to her own.

"Come to meeee…" she whispered softly, pulling her lips back and revealing two sharp, long fangs. T.K., eyes blank, saw nothing.

"…staaay with me…forever…"

Suddenly the crest in T.K.'s pocket flared to life, emitting a strong, bright light that blew the girl backwards. T.K. blinked, and the spell was broken. 

"What the hell…?"

"NO!" Kari screeched, her voice rising sharply. "He's mine! MINE!" She launched herself at the boy, her fingers bent in wicked claws, her face twisted in a feral sneer of hatred. Her eyes, so dark and sensual before, were now livid with rage.

T.K. yelped in surprise and jumped backwards, fumbling in his pocket desperately for Josh's crest. He tripped over nothing, and fell backwards, turning head-over-ass and landing on his back. Within an instant the Kari-creature was above him, screeching wildly as it bore down at him claws first. T.K. felt his fingers close around the crest.

Taking it out of his pocket, the boy shoved the crest forward, willing it to help him with all his might, and again it burst into life. The creature, now a withered, demonic imp with Kari's face, was flung back. Not wasting any time, T.K. jumped to his feet and began to run as fast as his legs would carry him, not caring where he went so long as it took him away from that…that…that whatever-it-was.

Behind him, growing fainter as the distance between the two increased, T.K. could still hear the voice, Kari's yet not Kari's, echoing in his ears.

"What's the matter Teeee Kaaaay! Don't you like meee any more?" And then it laughed, a long, insane cackle that bore itself into T.K.'s brain and wouldn't leave for a long time afterwards. 

Finally, when he could run no more, T.K. came to a stop, breathing hard, and collapsed onto the ground. He coughed violently once or twice, sickened to see the blood that came up with the phlegm, then sprawled on his back, Josh's crest still clutched tightly in his left hand. His own crest had never left his right one. 

***

He didn't know how long he laid there. It was impossible to tell if any time had passed at all and sometimes T.K. even forgot whether or not his eyes were closed. But eventually (it could've been five minutes or five years for all he knew), he spoke.

"What the hell _was _that?" He asked the empty air, not really expecting a response. He didn't know. But the fact that it had worn Kari's face, used Kari's voice, had deeply disturbed him, as did the fact that he had almost done…something with it. He couldn't seem to remember what exactly...his mind was all fuzzy and he had trouble concentrating. 

"That was a succubus."

T.K.'s eyes shot open (they had been closed after all), and jumped to his feet, clutching the two crests tightly.

There, in front of him, was Josh. He was sitting casually on the ground, legs crossed in what T.K.'s mother had always called "Indian style," peering up at the boy quietly. 

"Who…what the fuck are you?"

"It's me, T.K. The real me." 

"Yeah, sure you are, and I'm the king of cats."

The boy smiled warmly, and held out his hand.

"Here," he said, "I'll prove it." Joshua closed his eyes, and extended his left arm slowly, his palm spread upwards. 

"Come." He said quietly, and with that the crest shot out of T.K.'s grip, and floated gently into the open palm of the boy, where it began to pulse contentedly. Joshua closed his hand around the crest, and drew it back towards himself, opening his eyes as he did so.

"Convinced yet?" he asked T.K. 

He was.

T.K. sat down, crossing his legs as Josh had done, and rested his elbows on his thighs, chin in hand. 

"So… what's a succubus?"

"It's a type of vampire, actually. It draws on the carnal feelings of its prey, luring it in close and then eating it alive. You read about it once, in a book of mythology."

"Huh? How would you know what I've done?" 

Josh folded his hands together, sighing a little.

"T.K.," he said, "right now, you are standing roughly five feet out onto the roof of Umbremon's castle- although, I should say Malinmon's castle, since he's dark digivolved. In any case, you are not in a field of infinite blackness, and neither am I. Where we are, my young avatar," Joshua said, his eyes narrowed and now completely gray, "is inside your mind. That is how I knew about the succubus- I tapped into your memory. And even though you do not consciously remember reading that article, it is stored in its entirety in your sub-conscious memory." T.K. eyed the boy dubiously.

"Alright," he said, "I'll bite. Provided that this is my mind, then why did Kari attack me? That is, why was there a succubus at all, and how come you're not in everyone else's head?"

Joshua held up a finger. 

"Good questions, to be sure, and readily answered. First, The succubus was a mind trap, laid for you by Malinmon when his attack hit you."

"Mind trap!" T.K. cried, leaping to his feet. "The others! What if-" Joshua waved him to be silent.

"Do not worry. I know Malinmon, and for now, he will be toying with your friends. They may be frightened, but he won't kill them. Yet. No, T.K., the only person he wanted to kill outright was you."

"Why me?"

"Because," Joshua said quietly, "you are the most dangerous to him. Now please, sit down, and I will answer your other questions, and more besides." Reluctantly, T.K. sat down.

"That's better," Joshua said. "Now, The only reason I'm in your head…is because of this." Joshua brought out his hand, and the crest glowed cheerfully. "Since you were holding this, it gave me a path to follow into your mind, just in case Malinmon got to you."

" 'Got to me'?" T.K. asked.

"It's Malinmon's special attack- his only real power: Perception."

"Perception?"

"Perception."

"I don't get it," T.K. said, shaking his head in confusion. "How could he do anything with perception?"

"Remember what I said earlier T.K.? That perception is truth? Well, Malinmon can alter perception." 

"So he can change reality?"

"No, thank God for that. Malinmon merely changes how we _perceive_ reality, how we see the world. If one could see through his illusions, then he would be safe."

"I'm still not sure that I understand."

"Well," said Joshua, "let me give you an example. Let's say you're out there, on his roof, and his attack hits you. Well, he could alter your perception so that A: you don't notice, and start running. Then B: he makes you believe you've tripped, and are now falling off the edge of the castle. C: he gives you every disgusting detail of the fall- the wind, the tears, the sights and smells, and then finally, the landing, the pain. And then you die. And here's the kicker-your body never even left the roof tops."

"But if it's all illusion, then how could an imaginary fall kill you?"

"The shock. Remember, Malinmon can manipulate every incoming signal to your brain. Everything-sight, taste, touch, smell, hearing…Your brain can't tell the difference between what's really there and what he _says_ is there because the signals are all wrong."

T.K. swore softly, half in frustrated anger, but partly in awe of such terrible power.

"So how are we supposed to beat that?" T.K. asked, hands clenched into tight fists.

"With this." Again, the crest popped into view. "With it, your mind can be free of Malinmon's illusions." 

T.K.'s eyes hardened, his eyes set and determined. 

"Show me how," he said. Joshua shook his head.

"I can't," he said softly. "Even I don't know how to completely control it…all I can say is that where there is a will…"

"…there's a way," T.K. finished, turning the saying over in his mind. The younger boy looked at him in confusion.

"We have that one on earth, too." T.K. said.

Nodding, and even smiling a bit, Joshua stood up.

"Well," he said, "I've done all I can…I'm afraid I must leave you now, Avatar." T.K. stood as well, noticing for the first time that he was significantly taller than the younger boy. Joshua looked up at him, blue-gray eyes staring deep into T.K.'s own set of bright blue peepers.

"Good luck," he said, and was gone. 

T.K. stared at the space the boy had occupied, then slowly opened his left hand. Joshua's crest lay there, glowing faintly. 

"Alright," said T.K. softly, closing his hand around the crest and shutting his eyes. "…I'll bite."

***

Malinmon roared with triumph as the digidestined, one by one, stopped moving, the eyes of each child going successively blank and lifeless as he or she was drawn into the dark chasm of their own minds. Malinmon's laughter rang clear and shrill, cut the night air, drowned out even the intensifying explosions of thunder that tore across the midnight sky and split the clouds in two.

Then, one of them moved.

Malinmon's laughter broke off as abruptly as it had begun, and the two narrow red slits that formed his eyes widened slightly. Thunder boomed around him as he stared, not moving, a darker shadow in the black, watching as one of the digidestined, _the_ _boy_, slowly stretched out his arms, pumped his legs forward, blinked his eyes and then was fully awake again. A split second later, a howl ripped itself loose of Malinmon's throat, and he plummeted down, down, down, spiraling in a dive at breakneck speed. He stretched his claws out, each pointy barb aimed directly at the boy's throat, his eyes, any where that would make him scream. Lightning burst across the sky, illuminating the boy for a split second, and in that second, Malinmon could see him turning, hands clutched into tightly balled fists, yelling something that was drowned out by the ensuing thunder. The boy's eyes were a frosty gray color, and they seemed to pierce through the darkened sky and stare straight into Malinmon's own blood red ones. But he didn't care. All that stood between Malinmon and his victory was this measly golden-haired worm, and the digimon wasn't about to lose to such a pathetic creature.

Bright white light suddenly exploded from the boy's hands, burning hot in its intensity as it formed a protective shell around the boy and expanded outwards at a fearsome rate of speed. Malinmon stopped dead in the air, screaming with pain and terror as the light drove into him, attempting to shield himself with his claws. Then, he was gone, blown away in a wave of light that T.K. would always think (but never mention) looked like a large white dragon. 

The rain stopped, the thunder gave one last, distant, rumble, and all was quiet.

T.K. snapped his attention away from the cloudy sky, and instead directed it to Kari. The other digidestined were slowly coming to life, their partners along with them, and those that had been injured reverted back to their "rookie" stage. 

By the time T.K. had arrived at Kari's side, Patamon and Gatomon had joined him. Dropping to his knees, T.K. lifted the girl up by her shoulders, cradling her head gently. Like T.K., she was soaked, hair plastered against her face in thick clumps, pajamas wet to the point of near transparency. T.K had a brief flash of memory of the succubus, but quickly pushed it out of his mind. Her eyes were closed, her jaw hanging slightly open, and T.K. couldn't help but think that she might be dead, despite the fact that she was breathing in slow, shallow gasps.. 

"Kari?" he said softly, cupping her cheek in his hand, rubbing his thumb against it and wincing at how cold she was.

"Kari? C'mon, Kari, wake up." T.K. was bent low over her, whispering into her ear as Gatomon pulled in beside him. Patamon crawled up on his other side.

"C'mon Kari…" His voice was so low it was almost inaudible, softer than a whisper. For the first time since his early childhood, when he would huddle under his blankets at night and beg God to make his parents stop fighting, to make them a family again, T.K. was praying.

"Please…C'mon Kari, wake up…"

T.K. squeezed his eyes shut, tears escaping down his cheeks as he hugged the girl as close as he could.

"Please…you have to…" He leaned down, pressing his face against her shoulder, shaking with grief.

"T.K.?" The words were spoken softly, more softly than T.K's own prayer, but they exploded in the boy's ear like dynamite. He lifted his head from off her shoulder, and looked down into her eyes, her soft, liquid brown eyes.

"K-Kari, I…I…" He swallowed, surprised at how difficult it was for him to talk.

"I thought you were dead," he said finally, pulling her into a gentle hug. 

There was a brief moment of silence. 

"T.K…" Kari said softly, "…I think I would kill every person on this roof for a bath right about now." She smiled a tiny smile, and a grin broke out on T.K.'s face. The two of them began to giggle, and then to laugh. Then she returned the boy's embrace fully. She wrapped her arms tightly around his neck and he held her as closely as he could, and by the time the rest of the group had gathered around them the both of them were laughing and crying all at once from the sheer relief and joy of it all. 

***

When the digidestined finally walked out the door they had entered earlier, it was like walking onto an entirely different planet. With Umbremon and his influence gone, the land surrounding the castle had changed, reverting back to it's original form: where there was once barren wasteland, there was now thick, wild growths of plants and trees of every variety. Where there had once been dangerous, threatening shadows, there was now only the pools of lesser light that came with all forested area. 

The sky still held its dreary color though, and there was hardly any sun to speak of. But that was to be expected, of course; it was, after all, a dimension formed by the basic evils of humankind. 

Even in the dim light of that world, Josh had to shield his eyes. After nearly three years in his dark cell, alone, the brightness of the sky and the companionship of the other children were strange, and even a little frightening. But it was good-definitely good. 

The three of them, T.K., Kari, and Josh, had to be held up the entire walk back to the camp. T.K. was still terribly ill (but getting better remarkably fast, considering his walk in the rain), and the two former prisoners were weak from their incarceration. The other digidestined were happy to oblige; after all, none of them seemed to weigh much at all.

The digimon were tired, but well enough. Biyomon's wounds had vanished when she had de-digivolved, and sat comfortably in Sora's arms as the girl carried her. Tai was staying as far away from her as he could get, and understandably so-Sora had still not completely forgiven him for punching her out, and the bruise on her face was livid. Other than that, though, the group walked noisily through the forest, chatting happily between themselves and their digimon. 

Josh kept as close as he could to Kari, and by the time the group had entered their campsite, they were inseparable. He would follow her almost everywhere, sometimes clinging to her leg as a small child does with his mother, and Kari didn't have the heart to send him away. Not that she particularly minded his presence; the boy was good company. She only wished that he would get to know some of the other digidestined, maybe prepare himself a little for the real world. 

Gatomon, too, wouldn't move more than three steps from wherever Kari was, and the girl didn't want her to. After all, once T.K. was officially "all better," Kari intended to spend a great deal of time with the boy, and didn't want her partner to think that she would be left out. 

***

Nightfall brought about their exit of the dark dimension, and they left the same way they came in. It wasn't until late that night, about ten-thirty or so, when most of the digidestined had gone home (Josh insisted on sleeping at Kari's house, and she had agreed), that the telephone in the Kamiya apartment began to ring. Tai answered it.

"Kamiya residence."

"Tai?" Sora's voice came through the reciever, startling Tai so badly that he almost dropped the phone. He hadn't expected her to ever speak to him again.

Heart in his throat, he answered.

"Yeah?"

"Listen," she said, oddly enough not pissed off, "I need to talk to you. Meet me outside my house?"

Tai blinked, trying to comprehend what was going on.

"Uh, sure. Sure thing, just let me get my shoes on."

"Thanks, bye." There was a _click_ as she hung up, and the phone was silent. Tai stared it. Then he got his shoes.

***

When Tai showed up at Sora's, he did not get the welcome he had expected. Rather than yelling at him, punching him in the face or one of a hundred other things he thought she was perfectly justified in doing, Sora instead asked him to take a walk with her. Tai, too confused to argue, nodded. So they walked, side by side, neither one looking at the other. They walked that way, in silence, until they reached the Highten View Terrace bridge. Halfway across, Sora stopped, and began to stare over the edge. 

"Tai?" she said quietly.

The boy shuffled closer. "Yes?"

"I just wanted to say…" She looked up into his eyes, her own surprisingly wet and shiny.

"I just thought I should tell that I'm sorry. That I yelled at you."

Tai's mind reeled. _She_ was sorry? He began to voice his protests, but she shushed him.

"I mean it, Tai. I know you were only trying to protect me, but all I could think of was Biyomon. That's what I like about you, Tai. You're always looking out for people, even if they don't deserve it."

"Sora, I really don't-" He fell silent as she turned away from him, and he heard something that he thought sounded like her crying.

"Do you remember when we met, Tai? We were so little back then. I remember that I was sitting in the sandbox, the first day of school, playing by myself." Tai remembered. 

"And then Hiroku Kaze showed up," he said, and Sora nodded.

"He pushed me, stomped on my sand castle," she said, sniffing loudly and wiping her nose with the back of her hand. 

"And then you came and punched him in the face. Gave him a bloody nose." She turned back around, eyes still wet but smiling this time. "My knight in shining armor. Remember? I gave you a kiss." Tai nodded.

"I also remember that as the day I threw up in your hat," he said flatly, and the girl smiled again, and brushed a loose strand of hair back from her face.

"I've just always wanted to know," she said, after a few seconds of staring at the street below the bridge, "why did you do it?"

Tai shoved his hands into his pockets, and stared at his feet.

" 'Cause I couldn't stand seeing the guy push anyone around, especially a girl. Besides…" he glanced up at her, a blush creeping into his features but mercifully unnoticeable in the darkness.

"…Even back then, I thought you were the most beautiful girl I had ever seen." 

There was a long stretch of silence. So long, Tai looked up to see if Sora was even still there. She was.

Her eyes were shining in the darkness, tears running lightly down her cheeks, and her hands were clutching each other. Her whole body shook.

"Sora? Geez, I'm sorry, I shoudn't have said any-" Tai was cut off as Sora burst into a fresh bout of sobs and sat down on the side wall of the bridge. Tai, after a moment, sat down next to her and put a hesitant arm around her shoulder. The girl grasped at his free hand with her own hands, and leaned against him, crying into his chest.

"Sora…I…" Tai swallowed the lump in his throat as the girl looked up at him with her tear-stained face. He looked deep into her eyes, lost himself in them, and for a second he stopped breathing. 

"I love you."

Sora shut her eyes, and for a moment, Tai thought he had blown it. He started to rise, taking his arm off from around her.

"I'm sorry," he said quickly. "I know that you and Matt are very happy, and I'm being really selfish, so I'll just go home and you don't ever have to speak to me again if you don't want to, and-" Tai was rambling, and he knew it. He felt like the stupidest person on Earth, and couldn't seem to move fast enough. Stupid, stupid, stupid. 

He was in the middle of telling Sora the same when her hand tightened around his, and pulled him back down beside her. Before the boy could say anything further, the girl kissed him, deeply, on the mouth. She tasted like strawberries. 

When she finally pulled away, Tai was speechless. 

"Sora?" He asked, after staring at her and working his brain on overdrive in order to comprehend what had just happened. 

"Why…?"

She looked at her hands, his clutched within them, and didn't look up as she answered him.

"Because, when I was very little, my knight in shining armor punched out Hiroku Kaze." She lifted her eyes, giving Tai's hand a gentle squeeze.

"I love you too, Tai. Ever since Hiroku hit the ground." 

***

It was two weeks after their return to the real world that the Digidestined celebrated Kari's thirteenth birthday. There were streamers, and crepe paper, and party favors everywhere. The color pink was in abundance, as were presents, people, and most importantly, cake. Strawberry-vanilla swirl with vanilla icing, to be precise.

It had taken about three days for T.K. to set up the decorations; as Kari had predicted, he had done it with good grace, and had been properly bamboozled when it was time to buy her a present. He had eventually settled (with an enormous amount of help from, of all people, Davis) on a small rose made from pink crystal, and suspended on a fine gold chain. It had cost him about three months' worth of allowance, and Kari loved it.

Tai and Sora were officially going steady, and though it had caused a small amount of friction with Matt, the blonde had bounced back into the dating scene fairly quickly. As a matter of fact, his date to the party turned out to be none other than June Motimiya, a move that surprised nearly everyone in attendance. What was also surprising was how well they got along. The two spent a great deal of the party talking to each other, and when they left later that evening, they were holding hands.

As the cake was being served, T.K. lifted his glass and asked for silence. He stood up, and looked around the room. Kari was sitting to his left, at the head of the table, smiling and radiantly beautiful. Patamon was to T.K.'s right, sitting next to Gatomon. Josh (who had recently discovered that his parents resided not twenty miles out of Odaiba) was sitting to her left, looking remarkably healthy and well fed. His crest was hanging around his neck, glowing cheerfully from its chain. A digivice was clipped to the boy's pocket, and in his lap sat a smooth, cream-colored digi-egg.

At the other end of the table was Tai, with Sora to his right, Agumon and Gatomon to his left. To one side of the main table, a shorter one had been set up for the digimon. The rest of the digidestined were either standing or sitting in chairs that they had taken from the kitchen. Yolei was standing behind Tai's chair, Davis standing behind her with his arms circled around her waist. Joe was sitting in one of the kitchen chairs, and Mimi had decided to sit in his lap. Cody sat in the other chair, sipping his drink quietly and occasionally chatting with Josh. Izzy and Ken were standing by the cake, drinks in hand, eyeing it with unrestrained longing. The rest of the Kamiya family, as well as the other digimon, were crammed in wherever they had room.

T.K. swallowed, nervous. He had written the toast himself, and he was nervous, even though he knew it was good. He seemed to have a talent for writing.

"Friends, we are here today in order to honor the birthday of a very special girl." Everyone clapped and cheered, and Kari's face went pink. 

Once everyone had settled down, T.K. continued.

"This year, more than any other, we are reminded of how important she is to us, of how much we love her. 

"The past two weeks have been almost unreal, a blessed time of peace and contentment after what was arguably one of the most terrifying ordeal any of us has every gone through." T.K. knew the truth of that-he and Kari had spent as much together as they could, content to spend hours and hours doing nothing but holding hands in silence, simply reveling in each other's presence. 

"But here we are-all together again, and even with a new friend." Josh's ears burned pink at the mention of himself. 

"During that time, after Kari had been kidnapped, was without a doubt the worst period of my life. I was so afraid that something terrible was going to happen to her that I couldn't sleep, couldn't rest as long as I knew she was in danger." At this point, T.K. was talking directly to Kari. "I know I've said that I care about you, but until now, I never realized how much.

"Kari," he said, "When this all started, I gave you a rose, and with it, a promise that I would love you, deeply and forever. I know I don't say it nearly often enough, but I say it now- Hikari Kamiya, I love you with all my heart and soul. When I'm near you, I can't think, and I can barely stand up because my knees are so weak. My heart starts pounding, and when you smile, it's like sunrise. I've never felt anything even close to it before, not with anyone I've ever met." Kari was blushing furiously now, and there were small pools of tears in the corner of her eyes. T.K. was also pleased to see Gatomon remove one of her gauntlets and lay her paw on top of Patamon's. The look of surprise on the little digimon's face was almost enough to make the boy lose his composure and break out laughing. 

"I guess what I'm trying to say is that you're everything to me, Kari. And I know that everyone here feels much the same way as I do. We all love you Kari, and no matter what, you can always count on us to be there for you, because we all know that you'd do the same for us in a heartbeat. And that…" he finished, taking a sip from his glass and sitting down, "…is all I have to say."

There was a moment of quiet, and then everyone in the room burst into wild applause, cheering and hooting and banging spoons against glasses. Kari grabbed T.K. around the neck and pulled him into a kiss that went on so long it seemed as if it would never end. 

When it finally did, T.K. reached into the inside pocket of his jacket, and pulled out his second present for Kari: One red rose, wrapped in white tissue, a card attached to the stem.

"For you, my angel;

For my Light, my soul, My love;

For you, Hikari."

END

***

Author's Notes: Wow. After more than a year, it's finally finished. This is without a doubt the longest (and one of the best) things that I have ever written, and I owe it in part to some very important people. 

First off, I'd like to thank Tanya_Takaishi, the author to whom this 'fic is dedicated, and without whom I'd never have finished. For those who don't know, Tanya reviewed my story more than anyone, and for that I owe her a large debt of gratitude. So Tanya, if you ever read this, and you need a favor, just ask and it shall be done. 

Second, I'd like to thank everyone else for all their reviews as well. The driving force even one review can give an author is an extraordinary, powerful thing, and I hope that they keep coming in. 

Finally, I'd like to thank Ratboy G for proofreading most of my first fanfic, "One Red Rose" and for giving me so much encouragement while I was writing it. 

As a final bit a info, I'd like to point out something: out of 152 reviews (combined from all my stories), I have not received one bad review or flame. Not one. This is a huge credit to you, the readers, and I sincerely hope that you continue to read my work and honor me with your commentary. 

Thank you all, 

-Rob 


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